The Informant!
Review
by Sean Lynch
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The Informant!
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It was only a matter of time before Matt Damon completely flipped and agreed to star in a movie like The Informant!
for a bit of a laugh. Let's face it, he is it a bit of a "Mr Serious
Pants" when it comes to film choices - that said, it's a tact that has
served his career much better than it did Ben Affleck.
The strange thing is... is The Informant! really a comedy?
This
bizarre white-collar tale (based on real events) follows Damon as Mark
Whitacre, a rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland
(ADM), who randomly turns FBI whistle blower. The thing is, 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 (in short, the
guy is a serial liar) frustrates the agents 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.
While The Informant!
initially sets itself up as a fairly serious corporate whistle blower
piece, Soderbergh is quick to pull the rug from under the audience,
with the film quickly diverting into a humorous (almost Wed
Anderson-esque) world of odd. The audience never quite gets ahead of
the plot, a real strength, as Damn slowly but surely unravels the truly
complex and warped mind of Whitacre.
An excellent supporting cast, including Quantum Leap's Scott Bakula, helps keep things chugging along and ensuring that the audience never quite knows whether The Informant! is a movie, a TV sitcom, a dream or some kind of badly acted amateur theatre production.
In a word : Odd.
2.5 out
of 5
The Informant!
Australian release: 3rd December,
2009
Official
Site: The Informant!
Cast: Matt Damon, Melanie Lynskey, Clancy Brown, Patton Oswalt, Scott
Bakula
Director: Steven Soderbergh
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