“So, do you like this movie?” asked I as the credits rolled. Cynthia nodded, “It is entertaining. Don’t you like this move [that I pick]?”
“…”
Matt Damon’s acting is convincing, no doubt. I did a little research on this movie that is based on a non-fiction written by journalist Kurt Eichenwald, which in turn based on true events that happened around the lysine price-fixing conspiracy. Matt Damon plays the whistle-blower Mark Whitacre. Fortune 500 company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and FBI were also involved in this conspiracy. It is white collar crime, and the director Steven Soderbergh has certainly injected a similar level of dark comedy in “The Informant!” – much like my favorite “Traffic” and the “Ocean” trilogy.
According to my little research after I returned home, bipolar disorder – a mood disorder portrayed by Matt Damon’s character – does not seem to mean that the patient turns into an uncontrollable liar, a syndrome seems to imply by the film. The book appears to focus on the center character Mark Whitacre ‘s meltdown and bizarre behavior resulting from the pressures of working undercover for the FBI. And subsequently suffered from depression and have attempted suicide. That would have made a lot of sense. A deeper linkage to the film “The Firm” as mentioned in the book would also be nice. The end of the book examines the unfairly long nine years sentence Mark Whitacre received – disagreed by the author of the book as well as several FBI agents. That too would have been a better resolution than rounding up the film with yet another lie.
That, of course, is just my opinion. Something doesn’t gel, and I still can’t pinpoint what it is. Matt Damon, though. I have to say he is one great actor.