Voice-over narration is typically a lazy screenwriter’s last resort. Why bother to dramatize an idea or develop your story when you can just hire Morgan Freeman to come in and read it? But in Steven Soderbergh’s jaunty flick The Informant! it works the other way entirely.
The rambling inner-monologue of Matt Damon’s portly whistle-blower Mark Whitacre often drowns out crucial conversations, and instead of spelling out the movie’s themes, it’s just a loopy collection of inane facts Whitacre is entirely too pleased with himself for knowing. Nothing like punching up your corporate espionage thriller with musings on polar bear brain power, or the German word for “pen.”
Loosely adapted from a true story about a price-fixing scandal in the food business, The Informant! feels like Michael Mann’s The Insider remade as a Blake Edwards farce. Set in the 1990s but shot as if it were still 1967, Soderbergh favors Day-Glo colors and a brassy, retro Marvin Hamlisch score. (Even the titles appear in big blocky Laugh-In fonts.) One could conceivably see this story being played straight in other hands—or even in Soderbergh’s hands, for that matter. But the insanely prolific filmmaker is on his fourth movie in the past 10 months, and he obviously just felt like goofing around this week.
The film hinges on Damon’s sublime performance as Whitacre. As a dorky biochemist making the uneasy transition to the boardroom at a giant corn conglomerate, Damon’s packed on extra pounds for the role. He’s also got a ridiculous moustache, a bad toupee and the supreme confidence of a man who has no idea he’s acting like an imbecile. Collaborating with a couple of wary FBI agents (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale), Whitacre embraces his Junior G-Man status with gusto—calling himself “Agent 0014, because I’m twice as smart as 007!” He also has a slight problem telling the truth, which isn’t exactly a desirable quality in a witness.
Soderbergh packed the supporting cast with stand-up comedians (Patton Oswalt, Allan Havey, The Smothers Brothers!) and makes them all play straight men to this babbling tool. It’s a movie full of priceless, exasperated reaction shots. I suppose there’s also some sort of message here about white-collar-crime and corporate greed, but I’d much rather listen to Damon ramble on about neckties and polar bears. B+
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