FIRST LOOK

First Look: Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh's The Informant

by Alex Billington
June 25, 2008
Source: TheBadandUgly.com

Although Steven Soderbergh has yet to unleash his Che' Guevara biopic to the American moviegoers, he's already hard at work on his next film. Titled The Informant, the comedic thriller is an adaptation of Kurt Eichenwald's book "The Informant: A True Story" about a bizarre financial scandal. Matt Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, a top executive at the Archer Daniels Midland corporation who was willing to act as a government witness to a vast international price-fixing conspiracy. TheBadandUgly.com has the first few photos of Damon and set and he looks like your rich, flabby uncle that is fleeing the country to a secluded tropical island. The perfect example of an actor fulfilling a role both physically and mentally - a true testament to the talent of Matt Damon.

"The FBI was ready to take down America's most politically powerful corporation. But there was one thing they didn't count on."

It was one of the FBI's biggest secrets: a senior executive with America's most politically powerful corporation, Archer Daniels Midland, had become a confidential government witness, secretly recording a vast criminal conspiracy spanning five continents. Mark Whitacre, the promising golden boy of ADM, had put his career and family at risk to wear a wire and deceive his friends and colleagues. Using Whitacre and a small team of agents to tap into the secrets at ADM, the FBI discovered the company's scheme to steal millions of dollars from its own customers. But as the FBI and federal prosecutors closed in on ADM, using stakeouts, wiretaps, and secret recordings of illegal meetings around the world, they suddenly found that everything was not all that it appeared.

The real life Mark Whitacre talked in a previous interview about his double life. "When you're working for three years undercover, you get to the point where you don't know who you are. There was one point where my wife said to me, 'Who do you work for now?'" As for their choice of Damon, Whitacre explains, "It's like I was two people. I assume that's why they chose Matt Damon for the movie, because he plays those roles that have such psychological intensity. In the Bourne movies, he doesn't even know who he is?" As I already said, I'm liking the choice of Damon because he truly gets into a role and doesn't just act, collect his earnings, and move on. I wasn't even familiar with this film until today, but I'm definitely hooked.

The Informant is directed by Steven Soderbergh, of Traffic, Solaris, The Good German, Ocean's Thirteen, and Che previously. The screenplay was adapted by Scott Z. Burns, of The Bourne Ultimatum previously. The Informant is currently set to arrive in theaters on March 27th, 2009.

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