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The Informant! is kind of a difficult movie to explain. First of all, it’s based on a true story of a VP at a major corporation who turned whistleblower for the FBI. Secondly, it’s starring a tubby Matt Damon. Thirdly, it’s directed by Steven Soderbergh. These are all great things that should add up to a more than phenomenal movie, but somehow The Informant! becomes slightly muddled and perhaps a bit boring.

That’s not to say there aren’t some great bits in this film, because there are, but The Informant! maybe isn’t quite the movie it markets itself as.

Read more after the jump!
Damon plays Mark Whitacre, an exuberant VP at the agribusiness firm, Archer Daniels Midland, where "corn goes in one end and profit comes out the other." A biochemist entirely behind the promotion of such food additives as lysine, Mark tells his bosses there is a Japanese extortionist mole amongst their midst and FBI agents are brought in to investigate. After much prodding from his wife, Mark confesses to Agent Shepard (a very exasperated yet likable Scott Bakula) that there is a corporate conspiracy regarding price-fixing among ADM and its international compatriots.

Soon, an unstable Mark is being wired, videotaped, and caught up in his own web of lies. Now, this may sound a little like that boring Russell Crowe flick, The Insider, and in some ways it is, considering not much happens and the plot seems to drag a bit. However, the most inspired facet of the entire movie is Mark’s voiceover narration, which is an almost constant flow of Mark's interior thoughts and signals his incredibly active fantasy life and outlandish oddness. Mostly stream of conscious verbiage that relates practically nothing to the plot, Mark’s narration elevates the film from boring whistleblower plot to a weird little comedy.

But don’t let the arrival of Arrested Development’s Tony Hale and The Soup’s Joel McHale fool you. This isn’t quite a laugh-out-loud type of comedy the trailer leaves you to believe. Although Mark’s inner dialogue is amusing and insightful into his odd (and possibly bipolar) personality, there’s no moment that quite makes you giggle hysterically. And, mainly you just roll your eyes at how ridiculously retarded he acts throughout the whole movie.

Sure The Informant! is good. It’s starring Matt Damon and directed by Steven Soderbergh, for Christ’s sakes. It could be two hours of nothingness and still be good. The film just has a problem of not knowing if it wants to be a serious movie about corporate crime and whistleblowing or a goofy tale of a nutjob who thinks he’s a spy. It’s almost like a thinkier Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, but instead of the audience feeling in on the joke like in that film, we just spend most of our time laughing at Mark Whitacre, not with him—and there is certainly a difference.

--Darcie Duttweiler
 


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