The Informant!

2009. Dir: Steven Soderbergh. Starring: Matt Damon, Melanie Lynskey, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale and Tony Hale. ●●●○○



Matt Damon is The Informant!. So quotes the advertising campaign. Sometimes you have to wonder where the marketing got their inspiration, but in this case it is obvious. Matt Damon is the Informant! There is nothing else about the movie that you will remember even ten minutes after leaving the cinema.

As ever I resort of meaningless sarcasm to make my point, but the implication, I hope, is obvious. Matt Damon's performance is so persuasive and central to the film that you forget the other elements, and if you don't they only pale to the commitment Damon has given to the role.

The film is based on the mostly true story of Mark Whitacre; board member of a major agricultural business, FBI supergrass and compulsive liar. We follow Whitacre as he tentatively pulls the FBI into a price-fixing investigation as a direct result of a botched bla ckmail plot of Whitacre's design and then view his ascent into the trust of his handlers and then his descent to jail as one by one his lies and frauds catch up with him. Even his hair seems less and less likely as the film wears on, until the toupee is revealed for what it is.



On the most part it plays like a gently satirical spoof of holier than thou whistleblower movies such as The Insider, indeed the substantial weight gains that Damon made for the role could be considered part of that spoofing - look at tubby Russel Crowe in it's most obvious target. Those comedy colours are nailed to the post fairly early on - if Marvin Hamlisch's jaunty score doesn't instantly make you think of a sixties caper movie, then Damon's ADHD-a-like voiceover will soon convince you how out of depth and muddled Whitacre is.

Thankfully there is a lot of fun to be had along the way, it's easy to warm to Damon, even if you don't fully trust him. Whitacre may want to have his cake and eat it (or defraud the company whilst selling it out) but the extra weight gives him more of a hounddog expression, and you know all he really wants is a little love and attention.

The supporting players, from Melanie Lynskey as his supportive wife (she's having a good year) to Scott Bakula as his first FBI contact, all put in fine performances, but it's Damon's show from beginning to end - they are literally a gallery of other faces that surround his central turn. This doesn't help the film. We learn nothing of Lynskey's reasons to stay with her husband or of the FBI's process for putting together the case; except through the intelligence gathering eyes of Whitacre as the self styled 0014 - twice as smart as 007.

This detachment from the characters, and the general comic tone, means that you fail to feel anything for the situation that Whitacre finds himself in. Maybe that's the intention of Soderbergh, to disallow any remorse from us, yet he doesn't shy from the pathos in the final prison confession scenes.

There is a great deal of fun to be had in this film, the jokes are good, and Damon gives one of the most naturally funny performances of the year, but that in itself isn't enough for me to recommend it.