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.
Thursday, 17 December 2009
The Informant!
Friday, 20 November 2009
Out this week (20/11/09)
Quite a tough choice this week with a few films looking reasonably interesting. There's only one film that's going to come close to the top of the charts but for me it's the Coen brothers that will get me into the cinema. 
The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
French comedy that follows a family over 12 years revisiting them on five days that shape the history and relationships within the family unit. It's an interesting concept, but with no names I'm reticent about recommending it.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
Glorious 39
Stephen Poliakoff has spent many years producing glossy British TV adaptations of little known historical events, and has met many great contacts. They all turn up here, but let's be honest this gothic melodrama set on the eve of the second World War is only interesting for it's cast list.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●○○○○○
The Informant!
Steven Soderbergh's third release of 2009, with one more coming later in the year, is a satirical look at the whistleblowing career of Mark Whitaker, as played by a chubby Matt Damon. If I can make it to the cinema twice this week this will be seen.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●●●○○○
Kurbaan
Bollywood thriller about a teacher who falls in love only to find her beau is not all he seems to be - and then is dragged into a spiral of danger and intrigue. Sounds like most teachers to me.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Machan
Umberto Pasolini is a fascintating film producer with The Full Monty and Palookaville in his back catalogue, however his latest project raelly tops the biscuit - based on the true story of the Sri Lankan Handball team which blagged a tour of Germay in spite of most of the team never having heard of handball, and then they disappeared...
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●○○○○○○○
Sea Wall
French guilt about the independence and subsequent war in Vietnam has been well served in cinema yet reappears in the simple parallels between a plantation owning mother dealing with her children's break for independence. Starring Isabelle Huppert and Gaspiel Ulliel.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●○○○○○
A Serious Man
The Coen brothers have returned with wahta is being alternatively described as their most personal and most inaccessible film to date. Set in a Minnesotan Jewish community, following the titular family man seeking advice from the Rabbis a working knowledge of Yiddish seems to be a prerequisite.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●●●●●○
Southern Softies
The second of a series of films by comic Graham Feellows as 'Jilted' John Shuttleworth, no, I can't remeber the first either. Described as hilarious by his own press release.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
It's broken records for pre-release sales, it's got screaming teenage fans throughout the Western World, it's a thinly veiled propanganda piece about the abstinence movement as pushed by the Christian right. Hardly seems worth saying any more. Except there are many buff actors wandering around shirtless so let's watch it with as much irony as we can.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●○○○○○○
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Tuesday Trailers - The Informant!
Matt Damon takes the lead role, and the attention away from anyone else, in this sly comedic look at whistle blowers and corporate shenanigans. Never more appropriates than in the aftermath of the current financial crisis it'll be interesting to see if we can still laugh at the incompetence and petty dreams of those of us who manage major corporations.
The Informant! opens on 20 November 2009.
