"This film is based on real events, but not everything you'll see is real, some are a fabrication.”
“So there.”
Right there, the opening title sets up the giddy tone of Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!” Based on Kurt Eichenwald’s 2000 non-fiction book of the same name, it tells the tale of Mark Whitacre, a bio-chemist at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). When Whitacre informs his bosses that one of the competitors is extorting from them, the FBI becomes involved and seeks his cooperation. But Whitacre later lets it slip to FBI agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) that ADM is actually involved in a multi-national price-fixing conspiracy over Lysine, a food additive. Soon after, Whitacre becomes a whistle blower for the FBI, gathering copious amounts of information to blow the company’s illegal dealings wide open. But in the process, it turns out Whitacre actually knows more than he’s telling anybody, and it is eventually revealed that he has been embezzling millions of dollars from the company. From there, he goes from being a star witness to a corporate pariah.
“The Informant!” is not just your typical corporate corruption film in which the main characters are on a mission to uncover the truth and expose wrongdoings. The movie is really about getting to the truth of who Mark Whitacre is. As the movie goes on, we find that he is not only being dishonest to everyone around him, but to himself as well. Mark ends up being diagnosed with bi-polar disorder which makes clear how far his mental health has unraveled. Soderbergh gets us to trust Whitacre along with Damon, and the rest of the movie involves us getting deeper into his psyche. Whitacre doesn’t just deceive his employees, he deceives the audience watching the movie as well.
Much has been said about Matt Damon going all De Niro on this role by having put on a good 30 pounds and a mustache to play Whitacre. But he more than succeeds in bringing an everyman quality to this role which is not at all easy with a star like him, known for his good looks (the term actor fits him better anyway). It certainly sets his character apart from Jason Bourne, who Whitacre is clearly not (he does liken himself to James Bond though). Damon has never had a role like this before, and it should be considered as further proof that he is a better actor than many give him credit for.
Soderbergh’s decision to give the movie a comic tone is an interesting choice, and it is a reminder that he is still one of the most unpredictable film directors working today. This is his second film that he has released this year, having earlier given us his indie experiment with Sash Grey, “The Girlfriend Experience.” While this one was done on a bigger budget, my understanding is that he shot almost as fast (30 days was the length of the shoot from what I have been told), probably because the studio wasn’t sure if people would see it or not. Looking more closely at the script, this could have been Soderbergh’s “Michael Clayton,” but they both have taken this story (the kind we see in the papers everyday) and made it into something a little different. While the tone is a bit inconsistent throughout, and you are not sure of how amusing the film is meant to be, that may be the point of it all.
The humor throughout this movie is very dry, and it sticks in your throat for good reason. Whereas everyone here looks like they are having a blast with the material, you have to remind yourself once in awhile that “The Informant!” is based on a true story, and that Whitacre’s conviction ended up giving a sentence three times longer than those he exposed. This may be one of those movies that thwarts expectations as it has been promoted and advertised as a full out comedy. It is not meant to be a laugh a minute comedy like “Airplane!”
When all is said and done, “The Informant!” really belongs to Matt Damon as much as it does to Steven Soderbergh. As Mark Whitacre, Damon never looks like he is just acting or simply doing an impersonation of the real Whitacre. This is also clearly not a performance that stopped at the physical appearance (Damon gaining all that weight), but one which really gets into the inner trappings of this bio-chemist’s mind. From start to finish, we keep hearing Damon’s narration about the little things he knows and what he makes of people around him. I somehow figured that this would all lead to a big realization at the film’s climax, but it really illustrates the deteriorating state of Mark Whitacre’s mind. Damon actually makes you empathize with this even while he comes across as a Bernie Madoff in training.
While Damon looks like he had the time of his life here, he must have exercised like crazy to get all that excess weight off. But really, has there ever been another movie where you have seen a high ranking corporate employee so overeager to rat out his colleagues? In any other movie, this guy would be cracking under the stress and pressure of having to where a wire at the very least. “The Informant!” does cover the 3 years Whitacre worked with the FBI, and he did indeed crack under the pressure, but it makes it look like he had a certain glee about it for the most part, and that’s even while it was all downhill from there for him.
During taped meetings, he looks straight into the tiny cameras the FBI installed in the lamps, utterly annoying the agents he is working with. Later, he goes out of his way to almost completely exposing himself as he tries to fix the taping device inserted into his briefcase while in an important meeting. While walking through his office, Whitacre even goes out of his to narrate the tapes to indicate who he is talking to and also dictates what area of the building he is in. I’m surprised that those who worked with him on this price fixing case didn’t suffer serious heart attacks from all the unintentional stress he put them under. Whitacre always looks like he is just one step away from completely ruining the case.
I also have to say that for the life of me, I cannot remember the last time there was a character that inspired so many dead or befuddled stares from other people. It’s like every single character he comes into contact with has at least two or three moments where they look at Mark Whitacre with their jaws hanging down almost all the way to the floor. Have you ever seen another movie where so many characters look like they are about to say:
“Excuse me? Would you mind repeating that? YOU WHAT??!!”
The two actors who end up giving Whitacre the most jaw dropping glares throughout “The Informant!” are Scott Bakula and Joel McHale. Both play off of Damon perfectly, and their expressions mirror our own as we come to discover the secrets of Whitacre’s ways at the same time they do. Bakula, still around long after “Quantum Leap” and the last Star Trek television spin-off “Enterprise,” gives us a coolly collected FBI agent instead of the intense and easily aggravated ones we see in these movies. But not to worry, he does lose his temper eventually. Joel McHale, who is now starring on the NBC comedy series “Community,” is even drier here than Bakula. At the movie’s end, he still cannot figure out if Whitacre has been completely on the level with him. Then again, Whitacre probably can’t figure that out either. I remember saying that if you believe in a lie so much, it eventually becomes the truth, and that is the biggest affliction of all for Mark Whitacre.
The seriousness of the story is also offset by the wonderfully breezy music score by Marvin Hamlisch. It treats the goings on as a bizarre farce that goes further out of the hand than anyone could have imagined…and then it gets even more bizarre before the movie ends. Even as the situation becomes increasingly serious with the walls closing in on Damon’s character, Hamlisch’s score remains surprisingly upbeat throughout. Along with the retro opening credits, it’s almost like Soderbergh was trying to give the film a 70’s look even though it takes place in the 90’s.
Damon is also given strong support by the rest of the cast which includes some stand up comics like the great Rick Overton as Terry Wilson (he seriously has some of the movie’s lines and delivers them with sharp comic precision), and Tom Wilson as Mark Cheviron. Still, you can never get Wilson’s work as Biff from the “Back To The Future” movies out of your head. You also get to see the Smothers Brothers in different scenes, and it feels like it has been too long since I last saw them in anything.
Also really good in this movie is Melanie Lynskey (“Away We Go”) who plays Whitacre’s wife, Ginger. She knows only to a certain extent of her husband’s illegal dealings yet feels as powerless as he does to stop it all. Ginger never comes across as your typical trophy wife of a corporate employee, and that makes Melanie’s performance seem all the more original than what I have seen before.
So while it’s not quite a great movie, “The Informant!” does have a lot going for it, and it is very inventive in how it presents this morally corrupted yet well meaning character. Whitacre may think he’s like Tom Cruise’s character in “The Firm,” he is nowhere as lucky as him. Soderbergh continues to be one of the best directors working in film today, and Damon continues to get better as an actor with each film he does.
SO THERE!
***½ out of ****
