Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh (“Traffic”) directs this satirical film based on the true events of Mark Whitacre’s (Matt Damon) involvement with Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) a giant food conglomerate company. “The Informant!” is advertised as a comedy; yet it really is not very humorous. That doesn’t mean though that it is a bad movie. With superb acting a fun plot and a mysterious aura that will the have audience members guessing until the end (unless you know the story) “The Informant!” is a well-made movie that I would recommend.
The plot is where this movie really excels. The fun part however is that the audience remains mostly in the dark until the very end of the movie. Damon plays the eccentric yet brilliant family man Whitacre who has shown potential to become one of the giants in his industry. But when the FBI investigates possible foul play from Japanese competitors Whitacre feels obliged to discreetly divulge information about ADM’s illegal activities irrelevant to the ongoing investigation. The information he presents is much more serious than the possible Japanese mole within ADM. Needless to say the FBI shifts their focus to the new issue pressuring Whitacre to be the inside man.
He willingly helps telling the FBI that he wishes to do the right thing and put an end to the international corruption of price fixing.
As a result he lives two lives as a double agent. In one life he pretends to go along with the business and corruption within ADM travelling around the world to engage in illegal business endeavors. In the other life he informs the FBI on all illegal events that are occurring. He wears wires to get information from the top criminals and provides tapes of illegal business meetings. Yet as FBI Detective Shepherd (Scott Bakula) comes to realize Whitacre although seemingly sincere in his desire to help is not telling the whole truth. The essence of this film is what does not occur on screen forcing the audience to speculate about the truthfulness of the FBI ADM and Whitacre himself.
Sadly however “The Informant!” is only sporadically funny sure to disappoint anyone who expects this movie to be a laugh-out-loud comedy. The comedic elements in this film are not as humorous as they attempt to be although the light-hearted tone of the movie does diffuse to the audience. For example the whole movie is narrated by Whitacre’s quirky internal monologues which are supposed to be humorous. Although they provide character development by revealing Whitacre’s peculiar personality they do not unfortunately provide sufficient humor. Actually after a while the internal monologues become a bit annoying.
On the other hand the few laugh-out-loud moments are due directly to Damon’s outstanding performance. To capture the essence of Whitacre’s traits in such a convincing way takes exceptional talent and Damon gives one of the best performances of his life. Come February Damon may be nominated for an Oscar.
The unraveling of the plot like peeling an onion provides this movie’s fuel and intrigue. Furthermore the technical qualities of the movie in addition to the overall tone and acting are excellent. And although the film drags on through unfunny monologues “The Informant!” succeeds as a fun well-crafted story about one man who plays both sides.
Score: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
