Soderburg and Eichenwald's movie is neither fact nor fiction, and therefore both fishy and foul. Using real names from the ADM price-fixing scandal creates a pseudo factuality, in spite of the disclaimer at the beginning--"some characters are composites, the writers have taken dramatic license...so there." A quick poke in the eye, the author wants to blind us to the truth. Matt Damon played the title role as a disturbed and morally ambiguous character, and naively claimed he did not need to study the living person he defamed. If this was a post-modern deconstruction of the whistleblower scenario, why use actual names? The give-away of the movie's real agenda was placing the words of convicted ADM heir apparent, Mike Andreas, in Whitacre's mouth--"The customer is our enemy and the competitor is our friend." The movie's message is simple--Whitacre's a bad whacko, ****happens, shut up. Follow the money trail and you'll likely find Andreas backing, just like he did Watergate. Revenge!

I havent seen the actual movie yet but I lived this while I was working in that small town for that CROOKED and CORRUPT corporation. I know most of the players and TRUST ME on this one, if they made this out to be a comedy they did it at ADM's urgings. The film makers were paid off to make Mr Whitacre look horrible and ADM look like saints. Since when does a serious issue such as price fixing become a huge joke? I will be at the earliest showing today for this movie and I am sure I will be trying hard not to jump out of my seat and scream BULLSH** over and over again. If they merely wanted to make a comedy they should have done so with another subject. ADM is as CROOKED at they come TRUST ME! One of their main attorneys is known in town as "If you are guilty as hell go to Fombelle" (Norman Fombelle) The heads of ADM had ties to Watergate for gods sake. PLEASE read the other book involved with this - the one that is called Rats in the Grain - it is truer then this is

How did this movie get sold to the studio, exactly? "Yeah, we're gonna fatten up Matt Damon, a franchise action star... but if you like jokes about dextrose and lycene, boy have we got a film for you!" While the aforementioned Damon (or the doppleganger who apparently ATE Matt Damon) is exceptionally good in the film - good enough that I'd consider him a longshot for an Oscar nom, although a win seems like a stretch - the problem is the script he's been surrounded with. It's billed as a comedy... which clearly indicates that advertising has even less regulation than the corn industry the movie is based on. Seriously, they could have sold me a $10 ticket to see the trailer and I would have gotten the same jokes. Ultimately, the film can't overcome the fact that the script never truly decides whether Damon's character is our protagonist or our antagonist - which prevents the audience from ever actually sypmathizing with him. Wait for the DVD - maybe it'll come with free corn. :)

Not good at all

a dreadful film in which everybody seemed like automatons. I mean, give me a =break, surely the parents would have noticed their son had a habit of lying! Surely the wife would have registered something around the seventh new car! Or the kids want something he was hot to give them, a swimming pool or something. It was totally unconvincing, especiallly for a True Story.