What do bored, pudgy businessmen fantasize about? Matt Damon knows. In his newest flick, The Informant!, he piles on 30 extra pounds and sports a moustache to portray real-life executive-turned-FBI informant Mark Whitacre – a character as deceitful as The Talented Mr. Ripley, but less than half as interesting, in a film nowhere nearly as slick.
Ripley thrilled audiences because he was such an unlikely hero. A young man trapped in 1950’s New York City with nothing up his sleeve except a dream to live the easy life and an almost primal instinct to do whatever necessary to succeed. As he smiled his way through bold-faced lies and reluctantly murdered those who’d figured out his game, he managed to be both charming and loathsome all at the same time.
Whitacre is neither. A rising executive at a Fortune 500 company, he begins the movie with a comfortable position in the world, a happy home life and a bright future ahead. From there, he proceeds to tell the FBI that he and his coworkers have been engaging in illegal price fixing with competitors across the globe, apparently eager to play undercover hero. He’s teched-up with all sorts of recording equipment and provides the FBI with the information they need to make their case, all the while spinning a web of lies to cover his own illegal activities.
The picture, based on Kurt Eichenwald’s non-fiction account of the early ‘90s scandal, tries to play the story up as a quirky comedy. Damon’s narration reveals all the banal thoughts that cross his character’s mind, while Marvin Mamlisch’s wacky score constantly jumps in to remind you how you’re supposed to be smiling at it all.
Unfortunately, that may be what keeps the film from ever building any real momentum. Despite the exclamation mark, The Informant! never really succeeds at being funny. Audiences have seen this kind of character from Damon before and are unlikely to find Whitacre’s overreaching all that endearing. As the lies pile up and it becomes clear that there’s no way for him to escape unscathed, any sense of suspense fades, along with viewer interest. From the half-way point onwards, The Informant! is just an increasingly tiresome waiting game without some unexpected payoff to make it worthwhile.
Which isn’t to say the supporting cast doesn’t put in a solid effort. As the FBI agents listening to Whitacre’s lies, Joel McHale (Community, E’s The Soup) and Scott Bakula (Enterprise, Quantum Leap) offer up plenty of priceless reactions. Melanie Lynskey (Ever After, Two and a Half Men) creates a compelling – if brief – performance as Mark’s blindly devoted wife Ginger. There are even quick appearances from cult TV favourites Tony Hale (Arrested Development) and Clancy Brown (Carnivale, Justice League) … and yet, there’s still not enough there to make a strong case for seeing the flick. Now, there’s a scandal.
The Informant! is playing in Montreal. For a preview, check out the trailer.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I believe it to be fairly requisite for a film review to name the film’s director. It would also seem important to have some portion of the commentary reflect what the reviewer thinks or knows about the director and his work. Filmmaker in question being Steven Soderbergh, after all. Oops.
I’m not sure what your complaint is about here. Because the reviewer didn’t specifically name the director of the movie, that makes the review invalid? If I want to find out what a director has done previous to the particular movie being reviewed, I’ll just Google it, thank you very much. Aside from that, is Soderbergh some sort of god? His movies remind me of a roller coaster ride: you never know when he is going to put on his “artiste” face or surprise us with Oceans (you pick the number). The reviewer told us about the movie. I don’t see a problem with that.
Um, yeah. Since when does a play get reviewed without mentioning the playwright, an art exhibition without naming the artist(s), a new opera without the composer? This seems rudimentary and Not Too Much To Ask.
Then, yes, what sets an authoritative review apart from a blog entry is that it in addition to commentary it provides context, hopefully with some level of expertise. One way, in this case, might be to show you know something or have something to say about the person who made the film. Like you just did. If S.S.’s body of work is a roller coaster ride, great, why, and where does this film fit in that.
(To my knowledge Soderbergh is not a god, but there are some people who go to see “the latest Soderbergh,” is all.)
If critics can be critical, readers should be too. And this was an oversight, period.
Keen eyes dear readers. I did indeed neglect to mention Soderbergh’s name, but having seen none of his previous works, that’s basically where my commentary would have ended – as a name drop. Matt Damon, on the other hand, is a person whose films I have seen, so I opted to use that as a point of comparison in the review.
If you were looking for a critical analysis of The Informant! versus Soderbergh’s past works, I’m sorry to have disappointed. Hopefully the piece still proved useful and/or entertaining. Thanks for reading!
when it comes to movie reviews, one could argue that it is best to leave out all the previous works of the director. That way, you may see the movie in an unbiased light – the movie for the movie itself, not for some spectacular works the director may have done in the past.
This movie review is about the movie!
and the movie itself, apart from who directed it, was not a success. what kept me interested was that i knew it was based on reality – and even that made me biased towards liking it. Imagine if i gave a hoot who soderbergh is! i probably would have loved it.