When whistle-blowing turns funny

In theaters Friday: An Education [limited], Couples Retreat, Good Hair [limited], St. Trinian’s [limited]

New on DVD and Blu-ray: Assassination of a High School President, Trick ‘r Treat, Year One

If the name Archer Daniels Midland doesn’t ring a bell, the multinational agribusiness should at least be on your hate list for the following reasons. In addition to once being among the top ten air polluters in the U.S.—paying out millions in fines to the government for violations—and being named in an ongoing class action suit for child-trafficking and sweatshop practices overseas, Archer’s lobbyists and high-priced campaign contributions have helped prop up trade barriers on sugar and kept federal dollars flowing to subsidized ethanol production. With 43% of its profits from federally protected products like sugar substitute high fructose corn syrup—studies show this ditty contributes to obesity and can contain mercury—it seems Americans hired Archer to pollute the air, conduct questionable labor practices overseas, and make us fat. And it only cost us billions! Not such a sweet deal.

In the early 1990s, Archer added international price fixing to its list of services, and that’s when the FBI turned Mark Whitacre, Archer’s head of the BioProducts Division, into its lead informant. Whitacre became the most effective and highest-ranking mole ever in the history of the FBI, but that wasn’t enough action for him. As soon as the investigation started, be began embezzling millions. The FBI got what it needed from Whitacre to nail Archer, but not before their star witness was convicted of $9 million in fraud and sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in federal prison. He served eight.

If this sounds like a suspenseful Insider or Erin Brockovich-style expose with a tragic ending, that’s not how director Steven Soderbergh sees it. With aplomb and a wink, he and writer Scott Burns have turned Whitacre’s misadventures into his first mainstream comedy, The Informant! complete with a cast of comedians and a zany score fit for a Richard Lester romp. If that sounds harsh, it’s like Mel Brooks said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”

Matt Damon packed on 30 pounds and an award-worthy mustache to portray Whitacre as a near-sighted weasel too delusional with his own inflated sense of importance to see the big picture or catch a whiff of the stink he’s waltzing around in. He doesn’t get that the joke’s on him.

It’s a fun character to watch, because we would like to think just any buffoon can stick it to the corporate buffoons who’ve been taking us all for a ride. Deep down none of us really aspires to be Luke Skywalker. We’re content to be the guy who slides by miraculously, the guy with a wife and kids that love you enough to visit you in the clink every week when we really screw up. That’s what Whitacre’s real family did, and now that he’s out of prison, he is apologizing and blogging at markwhitacre.com.

Ironically, the blog maintains a prominent link to a trailer for The Informant! Maybe the real Whitacre sees Soderbergh’s film as a call-to-action for all those beady-eyed tattletales from elementary school, the roving packs of giggling snitches from summer camp and the smug backstabbers from college to step up and become whistleblowers, to finally make themselves useful. That, or he doesn’t get the joke either.