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Soderbergh’s The Informant! could be viewed as a companion piece to his other real-life whistleblower tale, Erin Brockavich, except that The Informant! take a story that is ripe for spoof, as the whistleblower in this movie isn’t a heroic crusader like the titular character that won Julia Roberts an Oscar, as he is clearly insane. Matt Damon is Mark Whitacre, a big-shot executive at Archer Daniels Midland who decides to inform the FBI about price fixing, the problem they don’t realize with using him is that Whitacre is a crazy person. He is a compulsive liar, he is greedy, he is vain, and he constructs a bizarro reality in his mind made up of a network of falsehoods and delusions that he seems to believe himself. The sixties spy-movie flavored score by Marvin Hamlisch juxtaposed with rather unexciting action seems to be the music ringing in Whitacre’s toupeed head as he tries to bring down the “black hats” at ADM. Damon’s performance alone is strong enough for this film to stand on, as the tone of Soderbergh’s Hollywood films (either directed or produced) has taken on an increasingly smug taste that seems to hurt his movies, but given the important Oscar-grubbing tone of most whistleblower sagas, it’s fun to see the piss taken out of them by someone who has made one before.

American filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (“Ocean’s Eleven” & “Sex, Lies, and Videotape”) returns to his roots with this quirky little black comedy adapted from the book of the same name by journalist Kurt Eichenwald, which tells the outlandish tale of the highest-level executive to ever become an FBI whistleblower in U.S. history, so there.

Bio-chemist turned corporate executive Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) is a rising star at Decatur, Illinois based Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in the early 1990s until he works with FBI agents Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Robert Herndon (Joel McHale) to uncover the lysine price-fixing conspiracy at the insistance of his wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey).

Golden Globe nominated Matt Damon (“Ocean’s Eleven” & “Good Will Hunting”) reteams with the director to great effect as the two slowly reveal the characters hidden facets while solid support comes from Scott Bakula and Joel McHale as the hard-nosed FBI agents at the head of a cast that includes an all to brief turn from the talented Melanie Lynskey.

The filmmaker’s seem to have a lot of fun in creating a disoreşntating back drop to their film with some superb production design from Doug J. Meerdink and an atmospheric Golden Globe nominated soundtrack from Marvin Hamlisch that combine with some curious twists to create a sleeper hit that builds slowly but comes through in the end.

“Paranoid is what they call you when they want you to drop your guard.”

Much has been written about the dichotomy in Steven Soderbergh’s work between his (usually) serious independent films like Solaris and his (usually) crowd-pleasing studio films, exemplified by Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels. The promotional material for his new film The Informant! rather gives the impression it falls into the latter category; but I think that might be misplaced.

While The Informant! certainly bears some of the hallmarks of broad entertainment (it’s a comedy, for starters), the story by Scott Z Burns from Kurt Eichenwald’s book The Informant: A True Story takes things rather deeper than the jaunty soundtrack and 70s-style titles would suggest.

Matt Damon plays the titular character, Mark Whitacre (pronounced Whittaker), a rising executive at giant agri-business conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland – ADM – in the early 1990s. The whole thing starts out with a problem producing a product called lysine. A virus keeps holding up production, and a mole within the company is suspected. Whitacre says he’s been contacted by a Japanese competitor who knows who the mole is, and is willing to divulge the information for the sum of $10 million.

But when ADM brings in the FBI in the form of Agents Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Herndon (Joel McHale) to help flush out the mole, Whitacre seeks to go further than simply finding the saboteur. He has, he tells them, evidence that ADM is colluding with its competitors to fix global prices for its products. Ingratiating himself into the agents’ confidence, Whitacre feeds them some promising leads; but they need more. He has to tape the crooked conversations.

Although Eichenwald’s book played the Whitacre story straight down the line, Soderbergh has decided to liven things up. The film is coated in the veneer of comedy, and many scenes are indeed very funny. This was actually probably an inspired decision – after all, the whistle-blower theme has already been given bravura treatment in Michael Mann’s The Insider and by Soderbergh himself in Erin Brockovich. However, as the film unspools and Whitacre’s life unravels, it becomes apparent that the comedy masks a deeper and richer tale about human fallability and weakness.

Indeed, the closest example I can think of to this film isn’t The Insider or even say Tony Gilroy’s industrial-espionage comedy Duplicity; but rather the Coen brothers’ seminal Fargo. Damon’s Whitacre is essentially William H Macy’s Jerry Lundegaard in a corporate office and a bad toupee. The arc of both films charts the central characters’ increasing desperation and their ultimate demise, which in both cases is brought about by their own weaknesses.

While Whitacre is a distinctly unlikeable character, you may end up feeling sorry for the guy. There’s nothing wrong with that, although I’m sure many audience members will feel that he gets exactly what he deserves by the time the credits roll. I must say I felt rather more for his long-suffering wife, played by Melanie Lynskey; and for the FBI agents whose possible ineptitude was at least coloured by their good intentions.

Matt Damon, like Russell Crowe before him, packs on the pounds to play Whitacre; and he’s excellent in the role, perhaps worryingly so. That he should take on a role as a corporate shlep and be so convincing about it is a brave choice for a actor whose best-known roles are in action movies (albeit thinking persons’ action movies).

Damon literally dominates the picture, appearing in just about every scene; which makes it difficult for the supporting cast to make all that much of an impression. One who does stand out is former TV star Scott Bakula (anyone remember Quantum Leap?) as the world-weary FBI agent Shepard. By the way, Soderbergh has made an odd choice by pairing Bakula with Joel McHale, host of gossip show The Soup. Still, McHale is spreading his wings somewhat, so maybe it’s not so odd after all. Melanie Lynskey, who seems to be cropping up in more and more roles these days, also does a sterling job as Whitacre’s wife, Ginger.

The Informant! is one of Soderbergh’s craftiest films to date. Not everything here is as it seems, either in the plot or in the deeper themes running through the tale. That the director and his team have so skilfully subverted the exemplars of his genre to create a tragedy of almost Shakespearean proportions is no small achievement.

David Edwards

Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant” is a fascinating plunge into corporate and legal tanglements served by a single man’s delusions.
The informant is wonderfully played by Matt Damon in a story where reality outdoes fiction. This is a true story and, at times, it is really hard to believe that such a level of irrational behavior exists at such high levels of society.

Mark Whitcare is an executive at the food conglomerate ADM. He is also a manic depressive who embezzles money from the company. Inventing a Japanese conspiracy to cover his own blunders, he is horrified to learn the involvment of the FBI. Using the truth to cover his personal lies, he informs the FBI of the price-fixing practices at ADM. Becoming an undercover informant, a so-called “whistle blower”, he leads the FBI in a major case against ADM only to see his own crimes come up to the surface.

This is a comedy of human failure and it is quite reassuring to see that, in real life, the government blunders as much as the ADM executives. We are shown a wonderful carnival of idiots and it does feel very real indeed.

I strongly recommend the film for its masterful directing by Steven Soderbergh and its eloquent criticism of human frailties.

I’m going to agree with Byron Brubaker (below) on this. The marketing was a little misleading with Damon’s dopey face, making it seem much for slapstick. I was expecting some level of seriousness due to the film’s true story of corporate corruption. Mark Whitacre’s voiceover narration along with an outrageously flamboyant soundtrack added to the dry humor. I generally liked it, but it wasn’t anything GREAT. I could see what Soderbergh was going for. Matt Damon was pro.

The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh, 2009)
This film falls right into the latest fad of anti-corn and anti-food corporations movement. It is kind of like a satirical fallow up to King Corn, which taught us that corn is in everything that we eat, and it is killing us. The Informant! shows where it all began and the corporate misconduct that went on behind the scenes. To truly understand most of the humor in this film you would probably have to be a lawyer with a minor in business, as much of what is going in the film went way over my head. This does not go to say that one without a background in criminal justice would take nothing out of this film. The acting is absolutely superb, which one would not likely suspect from a cast made up largely of small time comedians playing somewhat serious roles. The main example of this was E! personal Joel McHale who played ultra serious FBI agent Bob Herndon. At first it took me a moment to realize McHale acting as the more serious of the two agents, but once I realized who he was I waited for the comedic attributes that he normally performs on “The Soup” but McHale keeps true to the character the whole way through.

The trailer is misleading in portraying Damon’s character as a bumbling informant who yearns to be a secret agent. The poster suggests Apatow’s dopey, innocent 40 Year Old Virgin poster. But the fact that these things mislead fits the story. Damon is mesmerizing in this very different role. This man, Mark Whitacre, with a little extra weight, a mustache, big glasses, and a hairpiece (all things that obscure his identity) is NOT so innocent. He does claim to see himself as the white hatted cowboy against a posse of black hatted villains, as someone twice as smart as James Bond- 0014, and as Tom Cruise in The Firm. Well, he has a lot of delusions. The humor is derived from his cryptic voice over observations about life and all his scheming, while everyone else except his wife struggles to discover the truth. It’s about what it means to live a double life and how spinning story after story to cover for previous stories can get one in trouble. There are a ton of enjoyable cameos and supporting performances. The music is Henry Mancini-esque.

As with any Soderbergh film, much of the film’s discussion can surround the choices he makes – here going with a drab yellowy-brown look to reflect the insipid corporate culture setting; hiring comedians to play straight roles; using a Benny Hill-esque score, etc. Yet as interesting as those choice are, Damon’s the star here, and gave one of my favourite performances of this young year.

With Marc Whitacre, Soderbergh showcases one of his most engaging characters ever. Matt Damon nails this dimly devious character perfectly – even if his interior monologues and the film’s score drive the character’s quirkiness home a little too much.