A RISING STAR AT AGRI-INDUSTRY GIANT ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND WHITACRE SUDDENLY TURNS WHISTLEBLOWER. 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.Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant!–like the director’s one-two Oscar® punch, Erin Brockovich and Traffic–is an energetic exposé of corporate/criminal chicanery with wide-ranging implications for life in these United States. Not so much like those movies, it plays as hyper-caffeinated comedy. At its center is Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), a biochemist and junior executive at agri-giant Archer Daniels Midland who, in 1992, began feeding the FBI evidence of ADM’s involvement in price fixing. Mark’s motive for doing so is elusive, sometimes self-contradictory, and subject to mutation at any moment. To describe him as bipolar would be akin to finding the Marx Brothers somewhat zany. His Fed handlers, along with the audience, start thinking of him as a hapless goofball. Then they and we get blind-sided with the revelation of further dimensions of Mark’s life at ADM, and the nature of the investigation–and the movie–changes. That will happen again. And again. It’s Soderbergh’s ingenious strategy to make us fellow travelers on Mark’s crazy ride, virtually infecting us with a short-term version of his dysfunctionality.
Props to screenwriter Scott Z. Burns for boiling down Kurt Eichenwald’s 600-page book The Informant: A True Story without sacrificing coherence. And Matt Damon, bulked up by 30 pounds and spluttering his manic lines from under a caterpillar mustache, reconfirms his virtuosity and his willingness to dive deep into such a dodgy personality. On the downside, despite a small army of comedians in cameo roles, The Informant! has nothing like the rich field of subsidiary characters encountered in Erin Brockovich and Traffic. That lack of vibrancy is aggravated by the dominance of prairie-flat Midwest speech patterns and cadences (most of the film unreels in Illinois), and the razzmatazz score by veteran tunesmith Marvin Hamlisch sounds like pep-rally music on an industrial film. Soderbergh also photographed the movie (under his pseudonym Peter Andrews), and his decision to show everything through a corn-mush filter turns it into a big-screen YouTube experience. –Richard T. Jameson
Buy “The Informant!” For Only $10.48
January 15, 2006
#1
I didn’t like this movie. My friend wanted to see it. The reason was because she was told that the characteristics of Matt Damon’s character, she has too. She was falling in and out of sleep. The movie was really bad. There were some funny lines/scenes, but thats about it. Disappointed.
January 15, 2006
#2
the trailer for The Informant! makes this movie look funny. it portrays the damon character (marc whiteacre) as a Maxwell Smart type character helping the feds bring down a corporation.
that however is not what the movie is about.
this actual movie centers around the damon character and his sanity.
the laughs are few and far between and the movie just seems to plod along.
it just wasn’t very good and certailny not as advertised by the trailer (kinda like men who stare at goats — damn funny trailer, weird, not so funny movie).
January 15, 2006
#3
Saw the trailer and this is a must see. And Scott bakula is in it too.
January 15, 2006
#4
I was an extra in the movie portion shot in Springfield, IL; and I was extremely disappointed to see my scene cut from the film, as well as much of the footage shot in Springfield. I held out hope for the Deleted Scenes on the Blu-Ray version that just came out today. Springfield residents, don’t get suckered into buying this (like I did), because there are only a few deleted scenes, and they are pathetic at best; and NONE of them are any added footage shot in Springfield. I personally am through with Matt Damon films at this point.
January 16, 2006
#5
The movie would definitely serve as a legal documentary for those interested in legal matters since it entails the role of mental illness in management, marriage, and role of government. Without the incident of mental hardship, the government might have never caught up with the involved white collar criminals. Most of the folks who watched the movie with me fell within very narrow segment of educated adults. There were no teens or blue collar-appearing viewers that I could spot.
The diverse issues of industrial technology, international trade, government legal obligations, and personal motivations, the movie focuses on the consequences of having a mentally unstable crook getting his peers in hot water. The contemporary nature of the story and its elaborate legal documentation helped the producer in carving very accurate personal profile of a manic depressive individual. Not only the ill person damaged his own perspectives of maintaining employment and family, but also did he dragged his own spouse to believe in his bizarre views of reality.
The movie succeeded in portraying the contrast between the affluent and spoiled private professionals with the impoverished yet scrupulous government officials. The movie also succeeded in displaying the even hands of law of punishing a criminal, despite his mental illness, on the grounds of his intent to gain by destroying his peers instead of promoting public interest.
The strength of the movie lies in its perfect choice of actors who could play realistic roles of real people. The private business professionals sounded well-groomed and pampered with all means of modernity. The government officials appeared marginal on personal appearance and well being. You could easily tell the difference between those who hung to the government payroll and appeared like drained, burned individuals, versus those immersed in a fast-paced greedy industry with unbounded resources and consequences.