The Informant!

The Informant! is a dark comedy directed by Steven Soderbergh, based on true events and the 2000 non fiction book about Mark Whitacre, The Informant, by journalist Kurt Eichenwald. The script was written by Scott Z. Burns and the film stars Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale and Melanie Lynskey.

Here is the synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes: A rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Whitacre (Matt Damon) suddenly turns whistleblower. Even as he exposes his company's multi-national price-fixing conspiracy to the FBI, Whitacre envisions himself being hailed as a hero of the common man and handed a promotion. But before all that can happen, the FBI needs evidence, so Whitacre eagerly agrees to wear a wire and carry a hidden tape recorder in his briefcase, imagining himself as a kind of de facto secret agent. Unfortunately for the FBI, their lead witness hasn't been quite so forthcoming about helping himself to the corporate coffers. Whitacre's ever-changing account frustrates the agents (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) and threatens the case against ADM as it becomes almost impossible to decipher what is real and what is the product of Whitacre's active imagination.

The story was enthralling, the acting was top notch, and the questions that the movie left the viewers with were mind boggling. Why so often do the major perpetrators of a crime end up either getting off Scott free or are punished less than the whistle blower? And does the whistle blower have to be completely clean so that the investigation doesn't turn against him or her? Matt Damon gave an Oscar winning performance as did Scott Bakula. I am sure that Melainie Lynskey's performance as Whitacre's wife was stunning but I had a hard time seeing her as anything but Charlie's stalker on Two and A Half Men. I am giving it four footballs, one each for Damon & Bakula, one for Soderbergh, and one for script by Burns.

Have you ever been a whistle blower? I have and I ended up suffering more than the people that I blew the whistle on. The reward was that I could sleep, I just couldn't get a job. I was Vice President of Finance and on the board of directors of a publicly held company. The main product we sold were syringes. The second largest shareholder left our company in Oregon and moved to the Mid-West to start his own manufacturing company. At the time we were borrowing money from the bank using inventory and receivables as collateral. We would fill out a bank report that stated the value of our inventory and the amount of our receivables and borrow eighty per-cent of that amount. If that bank report is filled out in error with doctored up numbers it is consider both to be fraud and obtaining money by false pretenses. The largest shareholder, the one staying in Oregon to run the company, wanted to take the company private but didn't have the funds to buy the now Mid-Westerner's shares of stock. What he did was ship the syringes off the books to the guy in the Midwest who would then sign over shares of stock to him. That meant the numbers on the bank report were immensely inflated. When I discovered what the crooks were doing I resigned immediately. I went company's outside attorney and outside accountant and gave them all the documents to verify what I discovered. They both said that they would resign immediately. They not only didn't resign, they approved the financial statements that followed. The company went broke. The person that replaced me became the fall guy and went to jail. The shareholders got screwed. Nothing happened to either the two main shareholders or the outside professionals. They gave me such a terrible reference I couldn't find a job. But I recovered by starting my own business which by all reports turned out to be pretty damn successful. Now only if the bank would have believed me everyone would have paid but me. Such is life.

Have you ever been a whistle blower? What do you think you would do if you discovered something illegal at your place of work? Bite the tongue or bite the perpetrators?


TODAY'S TRIVIA:

Yesterday's answer. Hattie McDaniel the first African-American to win an Oscar for her supporting role in Gone With The Wind.


Today's Who Am I?

I was born February 3, 1821 in Bristol, England to a family of Quakers that believed that men and women were equal. I was the third of nine children. My dad was a sugar refiner who could afford to send his sons to school but he also believed his daughters deserved the same education and had them tutored by house servants. While growing up I lost all six of my sisters and two of my brothers. When I was eleven my father's business burnt down. In 1832 our family emigrated to the United States and opened a refinery in New York City. Due to our Quaker beliefs we were anti-slavery. When an opportunity presented itself to open a refinery where slaves wouldn't be needed we moved to Ohio. Three months after the move my father got sick with biliary fever and died. After my father's death I took up a career in teaching to make money to go to an advanced college. I became very active in the anti-slavery movement.

In 1845 I applied to Geneva College in New York. Because they hadn't had a woman student there before the faculty put up my admittance to a vote of the students. The students thinking my application was a hoax voted yes. I braved the prejudice of some professors and students to finish my education and become the first woman in the United States to receive this degree. I once replied to a professor that was upset that I wore a bonnet to class that I would remove the bonnet and sit in the back of the class but hell would freeze over before I voluntarily left the lecture. The male students there treated me like an older sister. I finished first in my class and received my famous degree on January 23, 1849. Because in the United States I was banned from the institutions were I could practice my occupation I was advised to go to France and intern there. My internship there was cut short with an eye infection that left me with a glass eye. In 1857 I was one of the co-founders of New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.

During the American Civil War I trained many women to be nurses and sent them to the Union. After the war I established a Women's Medical College at the Infirmary to train women, physicians, and doctors. In January of 1859 I was the first woman to have my name entered on the General Medical Council's medical register. In England together with Florence Nightingale, I opened the Women's Medical College. I taught at the London School of Medicine for Women. Although I retired a year later I still worked hard in the Women's Rights Movement by writing lectures on the importance of education and publishing books about disease and hygiene.

In 1907 I was injured in a fall that I never recovered from and died in 1910. Who Am I?