Additional information for The Informant!, which has a domestic theatrical release set for September 18, 2009. The film is being distributed by Warner Bros Pictures and has not yet been rated. The film's total running time is still unknown.
R
USA
15A
Ireland
K-3
Finland
T
Italy
7
Switzerland
PG
Canada
7
Iceland
M
Australia
NC-16
Singapore
15
UK
G
Japan
M/12
Portugal
PG-13
Philippines
12
Germany
AL
Netherlands
IIB
Hong Kong
El desinformante
Argentina
¡El soplón!
Spain
Alithofani psemata
Greece
Der Informant!
Germany
Ilmiantaja!
Finland
Infômanto!
Japan
Informátor!
Slovakia
Informátor!
Czech Republic
Informatorius
Lithuania
Intrygant
Poland
Ispiyoncu
Turkey: Turkish title
L'infiltré!
Canada: French title
O Delator!
Portugal
O Desinformante!
Brazil
Spicelj!
Slovenia
The Informant!
France
September 7, 2009
Italy
September 9, 2009
France
September 11, 2009
Canada
September 17, 2009
Finland
September 18, 2009
Canada
September 18, 2009
Italy
September 18, 2009
USA
September 20, 2009
Greece
September 25, 2009
Spain
September 30, 2009
France
October 1, 2009
Greece
October 9, 2009
Sweden
October 15, 2009
New Zealand
October 16, 2009
Brazil
October 16, 2009
Mexico
October 16, 2009
South Africa
October 19, 2009
UK
October 21, 2009
Philippines
October 22, 2009
Portugal
October 23, 2009
Finland
October 27, 2009
Netherlands
October 29, 2009
Malaysia
October 29, 2009
Netherlands
October 29, 2009
Slovenia
October 30, 2009
Bulgaria
October 30, 2009
Denmark
October 30, 2009
Iceland
October 30, 2009
Norway
November 5, 2009
Czech Republic
November 5, 2009
Germany
November 5, 2009
Russia
November 5, 2009
Ukraine
November 6, 2009
India
November 6, 2009
Poland
November 18, 2009
Belgium
November 19, 2009
Singapore
November 19, 2009
Slovakia
November 20, 2009
Lithuania
November 20, 2009
UK
November 26, 2009
Hungary
November 27, 2009
Estonia
December , 2009
Egypt
December 3, 2009
Australia
December 5, 2009
Japan
Based on a tattle-tale
matt damon is The Informant!
un-believ-able
"The Informant" is a true story that parallels a mixture of "A Beautiful Mind" and "The Insider" -- where real life Ph.D.s had done something extraordinary. Based on Kurt Eichenwald's 2000 book, "The Informant" is the tale of Mark Whitacre (played by Matt Damon), an Ivy League Ph.D. who was a rising star at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in the early 1990s. The bipolar hero wound up blowing the whistle on the company's price fixing tactics and became the highest-ranked executive to ever turn whistleblower in US history. Whitacre secretly gathered hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes over several years to present to the FBI which became one of the largest price fixing cases in history. In the story -- a dark comedy / thriller in director Steven Soderbergh's hands -- Whitacre's good deed dovetails with his own major infractions and struggle with severe bipolar disorder. http://www.patriotledger.com/archive/x1902439227/Basis-of-movie
The story takes place in Decatur, Illinois where ADM is an agri-business powerhouse and one of the largest Fortune 500 companies in the world. Its former Chairman, Dwayne Andreas, had extensive political connections to both political parties and was also connected indirectly to President Nixon's Watergate.http://www.bookpage.com/0009bp/nonfiction/informant.html The FBI agents involved with the ADM case recently (2008) went public stating that Whitacre "is a national hero" because of his substantial assistance with one of the most important cases in history. http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2008/04/06/news/local/1031549.txt
One night in early November, 1992, the high-ranking ADM executive did something extraordinary when he confessed to FBI agent Brian Shepard (played by Scott Bakula) that ADM executives-including Whitacre himself-had routinely met with competitors to fix the price of lysine, a food additive. It was initially Whitacre's wife (played by Melanie Lynskey) who forced Whitacre to become a whistleblower by threatening to go to the FBI herself if he would not have informed the authorities of ADMs illegal price-fixing activities. That meeting marked the first time that a participant in a price fixing cartel had ever voluntarily tipped off law-enforcement officials about a scheme. After informing the FBI, he assisted Dean Paisley (portrayed by Allan Havey), Brian Shepard, and Robert Herndon (played by Joel McHale) in gathering evidence by clandestinely taping the cartels activity in business meetings in locations as far as Tokyo, Paris, Mexico City, and Hong Kong. During Whitacre's undercover work that spanned almost three years, the FBI collected hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes that documented crimes committed by executives from around the world fixing the prices of food additives in the largest price-fixing case in history at the time. The film portrays that Whitacre went far beyond the call of duty and was one of the best informants ever. At one point, the FBI needed him to tape meetings in Japan, but Whitacre was not allowed to use the government's equipment. Japan was not U.S. jurisdiction. Brian Shepard and Robert Herndon asked him to purchase his own equipment at a Radio Shack. If Whitacre was arrested in Japan for taping the meetings, there is nothing the FBI could have done to help him. Knowing that, Whitacre went ahead and purchased the tape recorder and tapes, and did exactly what he was asked to do in Japan.
In a stunning turn of events immediately following the covert portion of the case in 1995, headlines around the world reported that the whistleblower defrauded $9 (or maybe $11.5) million from his company at the same period of time he was secretly working for the FBI and taping his co-workers. No sooner did an army of federal agents stage a dramatic raid on ADM's Illinois headquarters, than the company hit back with damning evidence that the government's star witness had his own agenda. Whitacre became delusional with the FBI in his failed attempt to save himself. After a suicide attempt, Whitacre and the FBI learned that he was suffering from manic-depression, also known as bipolar disorder with the resulting grandiosity and embellishments in full bloom. Before the ADM price fixing trial began, the FBI learned that their star witness was suffering from mental illness.
The film focuses on Whitacre's meltdown which occurred from the pressures of working for the FBI. It goes into great detail about Whitacre's bizarre behavior and how he cracked under pressure working undercover. After working undercover for years, he became extremely manic, stopped sleeping during most nights, and was seen using a gas leaf blower on his driveway during a thunderstorm at three o'clock in the morning. A vintage bipolar symptom, Whitacre attempted suicide a few months later, but he was saved by his groundskeeper.
Whitacre--who is extremely well educated with B.S. and M.S. from Ohio State and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in nutritional biochemistry--was still the most improbable figure of the story. With his extremely poor judgment associated with bipolar disorder that became worse the longer he worked undercover, he believed up to the end that he would become chief executive officer of ADM when the dust settled. His wife tried to convince him otherwise. He also became peculiarly suggestible as his mental state diminished. For example, after seeing the movie, ''The Firm'', he imitated its hero, Mitch McDeere played by Tom Cruise, and began taping the FBI agents and storing the tapes for later use.
In the end, because Whitacre violated his immunity agreement with the government, he was also charged for price-fixing, the same case that he exposed for the FBI, in addition to wire fraud, tax fraud, and money laundering. In order to save Whitacre, his first attorney, James Epstein, presented a sterling performance to the top U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials convincing them that the government was not duped by Mark Whitacre, but instead the government created him. Whitacre was the highest-ranked executive to ever turn whistleblower. Epstein emphasized that Whitacre was not trained for FBI undercover work; he was simply thrown in there without any training whatsoever and without any support to prevent him from cracking under pressure. He argued that FBI undercover agents get training for several years, and still do not go undercover longer than a year because they can crack due to the pressure. Whitacre, without training went undercover for almost three years. Epstein told the DOJ officials that he would go public in a trial with everything that Whitacre went through for three years working undercover, and to only be punished after he helped break one of the largest white-collar cases in history. He convinced the government that Whitacre solved a billion dollar case for the FBI, and that the case was a hundred-fold larger than Whitacre's fraud. Epstein was successful in getting a very light sentence for Whitacre. He saved Whitacre. However, Whitacre, with his manic-depression fully out of control by then, saw it differently and he fired Epstein because he was not willing to do any jail time.
Whitacre then hired another attorney and they distanced themselves from the government where Whitacre was no longer of value to them as a witness. The government used the tapes in the ADM trials, but not Whitacre. In turn, Whitacre received a federal prison sentence that was three-times longer than the white-collar criminals he exposed in a much larger criminal conspiracy. Kurt Eichenwald, author of ''The Informant'' which was the source for this film, and several FBI agents adamantly disagreed with the nine-year sentence that Whitacre received. The story ends with the three FBI agents, and a former prosecutor involved with the case, working on their attempt to obtain clemency or a presidential pardon for Whitacre in return for his substantial assistance with one of the largest and most important white-collar cases in U.S. history.
More than ten years later (2008), the former FBI supervisor of the price fixing case, Dean Paisley, went public with praise about Whitacre. "Had it not been for the fraud conviction, he would be a national hero, Paisley said. Well, he is a national hero", the former FBI supervisor stated.http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2008/04/06/news/local/1031549.txt "Without him, the biggest antitrust case we've ever had would not have been", Paisley added.
Whitacre was released from federal prison in 2006 and joined a California biotechnology company as an executive. In 2008, he was promoted to COO & President of operations.http://enewschannels.com/2008/03/27/enc2820_230451.php
As a result of the hundreds of tapes made by Whitacre, the lysine conspirators, including ADM, ultimately settled federal charges for more than $100 million. ADM also paid hundreds of millions of dollars in class action settlements to customers that it stole from during the price-fixing schemes. Several Asian and European lysine and citric acid producers, whom conspired to fix prices with ADM, paid criminal fines in the tens of millions of dollars to the U.S. government. A few top executives, including the Vice Chairman of ADM who was the son of the former powerful Chairman, received three years of federal prison time. The ADM investigation, in turn, convinced antitrust prosecutors that price-fixing was a far more pervasive problem than they had suspected and led to prosecutions of cartels in vitamins, fax paper, and graphite electrodes. Billions of dollars have already been paid in antitrust fines to the U.S. government since Whitacre first blew the whistle in 1992.
Steven Soderbergh
Director(s)
Scott Z. Burns
Kurt Eichenwald
Writer(s)
Howard Braunstein
producer
George Clooney
executive producer
Kurt Eichenwald
producer
Jennifer Fox
producer
Gregory Jacobs
producer
Michael Jaffe
producer
Michael London
executive producer
Michael Polaire
co-producer
Jeff Skoll
executive producer
Producer(s)
Marvin Hamlisch
Composer(s)
Mark Whitacre
Matt Damon
Alexander Whitacre (as Lucas Carroll)
Lucas McHugh Carroll
Kirk Schmidt
Eddie Jemison
Liz Taylor
Rusty Schwimmer
Discouraged Foreman
Craig Ricci Shaynak
Mick Andreas
Tom Papa
Terry Wilson
Rick Overton
Ginger Whitacre
Melanie Lynskey
Mark Cheviron (as Tom Wilson)
Thomas F. Wilson
FBI Special Agent Brian Shepard
Scott Bakula
Sid Hulse
Scott Adsit
FBI Special Agent Kate Medford
Ann Dowd
FBI Special Agent Dean Paisley
Allan Havey
Rusty Williams
Howie Johnson
FBI Special Agent Bob Herndon
Joel McHale
Kid at Pool #1
Nick Craig
Kid at Pool #2
Cody Puckett
Marty Allison
Andrew Daly
Budweiser Client Representative
David Campbell
Budweiser Receptionist
Carolyn R. Feltner
Zurich Bank Security Officer
Jean-Pierre Gillain
Zurich Bank Receptionist
Elena Eustache
Peter Dreyer
Hans Tester
Reinhard Richter
Ludger Pistor
Hirokazu Ikeda
Rome Kanda
Kazutoshi Yamada
Yoshio Be
Kanji Mimoto
Raymond Ma
Philippe Rollier
Hervé Deschamps
Alain Crouy
Pascal Ifri
Robin Mann
Ann Cusack
Joon Mo Suh
Dann Seki
James Mutchnik
Jayden Lund
FBI Agent at Raid
Chic Daniel
Visiting Client
Joe Chrest
Phone Agent
J.D. Mathein
FBI Special Agent Ken Temples
William Marsh
Dwayne Andreas
Tom Smothers
Aubrey Daniel
Clancy Brown
John Dowd
Bob Zany
James Epstein
Tony Hale
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The U.S. government decides to go after an agri-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president turned informant Mark Whitacre.
The story takes place in Decatur, Illinois where ADM is an agri-business powerhouse and one of the largest Fortune 500 companies in the world. Its former Chairman, Dwayne Andreas, had extensive political connections to both political parties and was also connected indirectly to President Nixon's Watergate.http://www.bookpage.com/0009bp/nonfiction/informant.html The FBI agents involved with the ADM case recently (2008) went public stating that Whitacre "is a national hero" because of his substantial assistance with one of the most important cases in history. http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2008/04/06/news/local/1031549.txt
One night in early November, 1992, the high-ranking ADM executive did something extraordinary when he confessed to FBI agent Brian Shepard (played by Scott Bakula) that ADM executives-including Whitacre himself-had routinely met with competitors to fix the price of lysine, a food additive. It was initially Whitacre's wife (played by Melanie Lynskey) who forced Whitacre to become a whistleblower by threatening to go to the FBI herself if he would not have informed the authorities of ADMs illegal price-fixing activities. That meeting marked the first time that a participant in a price fixing cartel had ever voluntarily tipped off law-enforcement officials about a scheme. After informing the FBI, he assisted Dean Paisley (portrayed by Allan Havey), Brian Shepard, and Robert Herndon (played by Joel McHale) in gathering evidence by clandestinely taping the cartels activity in business meetings in locations as far as Tokyo, Paris, Mexico City, and Hong Kong. During Whitacre's undercover work that spanned almost three years, the FBI collected hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes that documented crimes committed by executives from around the world fixing the prices of food additives in the largest price-fixing case in history at the time. The film portrays that Whitacre went far beyond the call of duty and was one of the best informants ever. At one point, the FBI needed him to tape meetings in Japan, but Whitacre was not allowed to use the government's equipment. Japan was not U.S. jurisdiction. Brian Shepard and Robert Herndon asked him to purchase his own equipment at a Radio Shack. If Whitacre was arrested in Japan for taping the meetings, there is nothing the FBI could have done to help him. Knowing that, Whitacre went ahead and purchased the tape recorder and tapes, and did exactly what he was asked to do in Japan.
In a stunning turn of events immediately following the covert portion of the case in 1995, headlines around the world reported that the whistleblower defrauded $9 (or maybe $11.5) million from his company at the same period of time he was secretly working for the FBI and taping his co-workers. No sooner did an army of federal agents stage a dramatic raid on ADM's Illinois headquarters, than the company hit back with damning evidence that the government's star witness had his own agenda. Whitacre became delusional with the FBI in his failed attempt to save himself. After a suicide attempt, Whitacre and the FBI learned that he was suffering from manic-depression, also known as bipolar disorder with the resulting grandiosity and embellishments in full bloom. Before the ADM price fixing trial began, the FBI learned that their star witness was suffering from mental illness.
The film focuses on Whitacre's meltdown which occurred from the pressures of working for the FBI. It goes into great detail about Whitacre's bizarre behavior and how he cracked under pressure working undercover. After working undercover for years, he became extremely manic, stopped sleeping during most nights, and was seen using a gas leaf blower on his driveway during a thunderstorm at three o'clock in the morning. A vintage bipolar symptom, Whitacre attempted suicide a few months later, but he was saved by his groundskeeper.
Whitacre--who is extremely well educated with B.S. and M.S. from Ohio State and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in nutritional biochemistry--was still the most improbable figure of the story. With his extremely poor judgment associated with bipolar disorder that became worse the longer he worked undercover, he believed up to the end that he would become chief executive officer of ADM when the dust settled. His wife tried to convince him otherwise. He also became peculiarly suggestible as his mental state diminished. For example, after seeing the movie, ''The Firm'', he imitated its hero, Mitch McDeere played by Tom Cruise, and began taping the FBI agents and storing the tapes for later use.
In the end, because Whitacre violated his immunity agreement with the government, he was also charged for price-fixing, the same case that he exposed for the FBI, in addition to wire fraud, tax fraud, and money laundering. In order to save Whitacre, his first attorney, James Epstein, presented a sterling performance to the top U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials convincing them that the government was not duped by Mark Whitacre, but instead the government created him. Whitacre was the highest-ranked executive to ever turn whistleblower. Epstein emphasized that Whitacre was not trained for FBI undercover work; he was simply thrown in there without any training whatsoever and without any support to prevent him from cracking under pressure. He argued that FBI undercover agents get training for several years, and still do not go undercover longer than a year because they can crack due to the pressure. Whitacre, without training went undercover for almost three years. Epstein told the DOJ officials that he would go public in a trial with everything that Whitacre went through for three years working undercover, and to only be punished after he helped break one of the largest white-collar cases in history. He convinced the government that Whitacre solved a billion dollar case for the FBI, and that the case was a hundred-fold larger than Whitacre's fraud. Epstein was successful in getting a very light sentence for Whitacre. He saved Whitacre. However, Whitacre, with his manic-depression fully out of control by then, saw it differently and he fired Epstein because he was not willing to do any jail time.
Whitacre then hired another attorney and they distanced themselves from the government where Whitacre was no longer of value to them as a witness. The government used the tapes in the ADM trials, but not Whitacre. In turn, Whitacre received a federal prison sentence that was three-times longer than the white-collar criminals he exposed in a much larger criminal conspiracy. Kurt Eichenwald, author of ''The Informant'' which was the source for this film, and several FBI agents adamantly disagreed with the nine-year sentence that Whitacre received. The story ends with the three FBI agents, and a former prosecutor involved with the case, working on their attempt to obtain clemency or a presidential pardon for Whitacre in return for his substantial assistance with one of the largest and most important white-collar cases in U.S. history.
More than ten years later (2008), the former FBI supervisor of the price fixing case, Dean Paisley, went public with praise about Whitacre. "Had it not been for the fraud conviction, he would be a national hero, Paisley said. Well, he is a national hero", the former FBI supervisor stated.http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2008/04/06/news/local/1031549.txt "Without him, the biggest antitrust case we've ever had would not have been", Paisley added.
Whitacre was released from federal prison in 2006 and joined a California biotechnology company as an executive. In 2008, he was promoted to COO & President of operations.http://enewschannels.com/2008/03/27/enc2820_230451.php
As a result of the hundreds of tapes made by Whitacre, the lysine conspirators, including ADM, ultimately settled federal charges for more than $100 million. ADM also paid hundreds of millions of dollars in class action settlements to customers that it stole from during the price-fixing schemes. Several Asian and European lysine and citric acid producers, whom conspired to fix prices with ADM, paid criminal fines in the tens of millions of dollars to the U.S. government. A few top executives, including the Vice Chairman of ADM who was the son of the former powerful Chairman, received three years of federal prison time. The ADM investigation, in turn, convinced antitrust prosecutors that price-fixing was a far more pervasive problem than they had suspected and led to prosecutions of cartels in vitamins, fax paper, and graphite electrodes. Billions of dollars have already been paid in antitrust fines to the U.S. government since Whitacre first blew the whistle in 1992.
Director(s)
Kurt Eichenwald
Writer(s)
producer
George Clooney
executive producer
Kurt Eichenwald
producer
Jennifer Fox
producer
Gregory Jacobs
producer
Michael Jaffe
producer
Michael London
executive producer
Michael Polaire
co-producer
Jeff Skoll
executive producer
Producer(s)
Composer(s)
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