Screenwriter Scott Burns has taken Eichewald's work and turned it into a marvelous vehicle for Matt Damon, who plays Mark Whitacre, the highest-ranking corporate whistle-blower ever. Whitacre was a divisional president for Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) when he informed the FBI of his company's multi-national price-fixing scheme.

The two agents assigned to his case, Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Herndon (Joel McHale), are thrilled to have such an eager beaver to assist them in this major undertaking, even going so far as to have Whitacre wear a wire and stow recording equipment in his briefcase, until they suspect that he's not telling them everything. And, hysterically so, he's not. While he's helping to uncover this huge corporate scandal, he's secretly embezzling millions from ADM, unbeknownst to even his wife, Ginger (Melanie Lynskey).

Rarely do we get to have so much fun watching the FBI shake down a major corporation. Director Steven Soderbergh has made a conscientious decision to go for the laughs, and one can't help but enjoy all of the machinations that Whitacre and the FBI agents go through to pull this off. Soderbergh employs the voice-over technique with Whitacre giving a running commentary throughout the entire film. This proves to be doubly effective because we're never really sure when he's telling the truth.

Damon's performance as the "doughy" Whitacre has Oscar nomination written all over it. He's a joy to watch, especially in the scenes in which he's required to be so earnest. Bakula plays Agent Shepard perfectly --- his impatience and eventual disgust with Whitacre is palpable. Lynskey is a hoot as Ginger, one minute she's defending her husband, the next she wants to strangle him for getting them into this mess. Even the score by Marvin Hamlisch is wonderfully appropriate.

It took a long time for Soderbergh to get this film made, but it is definitely worth it. A "great American hero" (as Whitacre wanted to be remembered) gone wild is a very funny thing to observe.

Damon is nothing less than masterful in what is one of the most entertaining films of the year. The real-life Whitacre was a manic-depressive, although at the beginning of the FBI investigation he appears to be as normal as any company executive, with degrees from Ohio State and Cornell, other than the fact he was embezzling millions from ADM, which we learn later in the story.

His wife, Ginger (Melanie Lynskey), was instrumental in Whitacre turning himself in, and FBI agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula, instantly recognizable as the star of TV's "Quantum Leap"), while sympathetic to Whitacre's dilemma, is responsible for nailing the white-collar criminals who fixed prices of lysine, a food additive, resulting in higher prices for consumers worldwide.

Director Steven Soderbergh ("Traffic", "Erin Brockovich") gets the very best from a marvelous cast, but this is Damon's film. The actor gained some 30 pounds to portray the pudgy Whitacre. It is the frequent, stream-of-consciousness voiceovers by Whitacre that provide some comic relief, but ultimately they provide insight into a brilliant mind descending into a world of corporate madness. The stress of aiding the FBI for so long, untrained at that, eventually leads to a complete unraveling by Whitacre. Damon's performance is not easily forgotten, and it is surely one of the year's best.