The Informant! – Review

While you never should write off anything until the so-called Fat Lady sings, I’m sure it’s a safe bet to call 2009 the Year of Soderbergh. Releasing incredibly diverse films like a historical biopic epic in Che, to an experimental HD film in The Girlfriend Experience. The Informant proves that director Soderbergh is a rare bird in his handling of any genre. I’m just waiting for the Soderbergh horror film, but he is very Stanley Kubrick in that regard. No matter the genre, he breathes new life into it somehow, some way, and comes out with a winner.

The Informant is a hum-dinger of a corporate drama. Filled with one of the year’s most interesting characters in Matt Damon’s Mark Whitacre, Soderbergh isn’t crafting a standard issue corporate drama, like the ones that have failed recently. I’ll liken this to Michael Mann’s Insider, but funnier. That has been one of the film’s marketing ploys, is to show how funny the film is, and it is pretty darn funny. Damon is pitch perfect in his line deliveries, taking it all so dead-pan, as if what he is doing are some deep dramatic lines, that in turn is funnier for it. But much like the film itself, not all of it is what it seems. Soderbergh slowly, and with great care, pulls back the veil of Mark Whitacre in the second half of the film.

Look for some very, very subtle movements in the hair piece of Damon’s character. Could something be up with Whitacre? You’ll be hard pressed to catch these the first time through, making a repeated viewing most rewarding.

Like the food industry isn’t scary enough, we have this Mark Whitacre character revealing some highly unethical price-fixing. This is all in the early 1990s, and if the prices don’ kill you, it’ll be the high fructose corn syrup. Soderbergh’s satirical spin on the corporate thriller keeps the film feeling alive, and Damon’s goodie-two-shoe demeanor helps, but what keeps you on your toes here, is the handling of the film’s revealing of the hidden layers. It’s the slight-of-hand trick, that’s very Hitchcockian in delivery. I think the less you know, the better, as with any drama. Just go in knowing that Damon’s early blandness, is not just a Midwestern trait, but a deft magical trick for his game. Soderbergh is an equal magician as was this Mark Whitaxre fella, making The Informant a riveting, hilarious piece of one of the most absurd political thrillers you’ll see.

And it’s all true…

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