As evidenced by The Informant!, it's a hell of a tricky thing turning real-life pulp into floss sugar. The story of Archer Daniels Midland biochemist-exec-turned-crooked-federal-snitch Mark Whitacre is a tragicomedy. Journalist Kurt Eichenwald spent five years trailing the bipolar fuck-up, and his 2000 book, The Informant, is so densely, richly packed with gut-wrenching what-the-what? revelations that it's easy to speed through the 600-plus pages thinking it's a novel. Which, for some reason, wasn't good enough for writer Scott Z. Burns and director Steven Soderbergh, who frame their screen adaptation, The Informant!, between quotation marks so they can giggle from a safe distance.
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