User reviews

Disappointing effort from Soderbergh, especially since, given the source material, it had a lot of potential. The story and script are solid - the plot twists and turns and often takes the viewer by surprise, and manages to slip in a statement about the incompetency of both government officials and business companies. And yet, it doesn't really hit a nerve, mainly because of hollow and dull directing. Damon does a decent job but his character - filled to the brim with quirks and personality traits - doesn't really have any actual personality, nor does any other character in the entire film. And stylistically it's a total mess. The title cards and goofy music are supposed to tell us that we're in a homage to 60's spy movies but mainly they just irritate, especially the terrible musical score that's plastered onto every scene in an effort to prove that, despite being everything but, The Informant is actually a comedy. It doesn't work. It's watchable but it's also a real waste, a good story fallen victim to poor storytelling.

Reading the opinions posted on this site it appears that a lot of viewers came to this film with the expectation of big laughs throughout and, when the film didn't delivered them, walked off in a huff moaning about the film failing to deliver. In fairness to them I suspect that their complaints may be valid based on trailers and marketing suggesting this would be the case – the exclamation point in the title probably didn't help either. So I'm glad then that I came to the film without a great deal of knowledge about what the film was trying to be other than it was a slightly comic version of a true case from the 1990's.

I am glad because this is what the film is – a comic take on a real situation where the decision to do so as a light comedy appears to have paid off. With Mark Whitacre as the main character, we follow him into the case and we immediately start to get the impression that this guy really doesn't have his head in the real world – like he doesn't understand the consequences of anything he says and does, which perhaps accounts for his rather cheerful outlook and easy personality. This is true but the full extent of his actions are unveiled nicely across the whole film – leaving me at times a little like the FBI lawyer during the presentation from ADM's attorney, mouth open not quite believing it.

It is not a hilarious movie by any means but the comic air makes it easy to enjoy and the story is engaging and entertaining. Soderbergh does slightly overdo the "wacky" feel to and he probably didn't need to have as many recognisable faces from comedy in small roles, but he does make it work. A big part of this reason is Matt Damon – showing that while he may be a Hollywood action star now, he is very capable as a character actor to. He does channel William H Macy from Fargo a little bit in how he will try and make pathetic lies to get himself out of trouble but I see this as a compliment because Macy is very good at that sort of character performance. Damon nails the cheerful self-delusion and his narration keeps us "on side" with him, making the comic tone work. The support cast is perhaps a bit too full of well-known faces but everyone is good, working again with the approach.

Overall The Informant! appears to be disliked mainly by those who expected something that marketing led them to believe this was. Coming to it on its own terms however this is an engaging story told with a comic air that works and makes the film as entertaining as it is interesting. Not hilarious and one could question if it is fair to handle Whitacre's story in a light manner, but it does work and I enjoyed it for what it was.

Greetings again from the darkness. Steven Soderbergh is a genius with a camera. Just admiring the shots, angles and movement of the camera in his films is worth the price of admission. Here we get a fact-based story from the book by Kurt Eichenwald showing us what happened when Mark Whitacre became one of the most famous corporate whistle-blowers of all time ... he exposed price-fixing at Archer Daniels Midland, the ag-giant.

Matt Damon takes this quasi-caricature and turns him into a comedy act along the lines of Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar. OK, I'll admit, there is more subtlety here than in that one. Still, the voice-overs by Damon's character provide the ramblings of a madman - an ADD, embezzling madman.

There is so much comedy here that it is easy to forget what heinous crimes the senior management of this company actually committed - and how arrogant to think they could get away with it. This again shows that many in the corporate world are the equals of even the most corrupt politicians. Power and Greed are all-consuming.

While, I don't know the details of the real story, it was interesting to watch Whitacre's interacting/playing with the FBI agents (Scott Bacula and Joel McHale). They want to believe him and are actually crushed when his game is exposed.

A real Soderbergh touch is the casting of both Smothers Brothers in unrelated roles. Very nice. It is very difficult for me to believe that someone as intelligent and shrewd as Whitacre could actually be so, well, goofy. But it does add an entertainment element to the film. I will say it is not at the level of far superior "The Insider" or even "Catch Me if You Can", but it is quite watchable.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

The true story of Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) who worked for a giant firm that produced lysine chemicals in products to be consumed by humans. Whitacre maintained a degree of honesty and integrity to his work, but when he uncovered evidence of price fixing with rival foreign companies, he turned undercover informant for the FBI...but, as events rolled on, it would appear he may have known a bit more about what was going on himself than he was letting on.

Playing like a lighter version of 1999's The Insider, Steven Soderbergh's dramatization of corporate corruption in the early 90s is amusingly on edge through-out, with Damon's constant muted voice-overs gently guiding us along this tale of principles and ethics clashing with corporate greed and deception. Damon is affable enough in the lead role (certainly hard to think of any actor who could have done it better) and the story is pretty relevant and dynamic. There's nothing about it that really makes it unforgettable or brilliant, but it's certainly worth a bit of your time. ***

+Fun little comedy that sheds light on an actual case +Matt Damon plays his role well as most of the film you can't tell if he's lying or not

-A little longer than I would've liked and had trouble holding my attention

Layers, more layers, it goes on and on when corporate informer Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) starts blabbing to the FBI about dodgy shenanigans at his mid-west corn-producing employers. Who do we believe? Where are the truths? Things are not a simple as they may initially seem. This is a quirky production, y'know the type, kinda colourful in a cartoon postcard kind of way with an optimistic voiceover from our main character. It is not one of those heavy, heavy expose's investigating the workings of huge corporations with tense court scenes and the like. No, the touch is certainly kept light and the subject-matter all the more interesting because it focuses in on the individual rather than the faceless corporate edifice. Not laugh-out-loud despite being described as a comedy, but reasonably entertaining and worth checking out.

This will be short. I read the book when it first came out in 2000, and recently watched the film, and now am rereading the book. The book is dry and difficult, with three and half pages of involved people listed at the very beginning. Who can keep track of all this? It is replete with the taped conversations of the involved, all of the everything that went on. And, it is tedious, if correct, in the extreme. Well, what the film did, and bless it, was to simplify all of this stuff and make it intelligible to us ordinary folks. And, it made a really nasty story somewhat funny, because we know within the first half hour or so that there is something hinky about this Whitacre character. Oh boy, is there, but I won't write a spoiler here. There's no reason to. Even in the book, the FBI guys were wondering about Whitacre. Why did he turn traitor to his own company? What did he have to gain? The film is extremely well done, an amazingly good adaptation of a book which would probably have you snoozing after fifteen minutes. Matt Damon really shows his stuff in this one, even developing a modest middle age belly to complete the image of the nerdy scientist.

Watch it, laugh at it, and remember: this is a true story about why most of the people in America are poor and how their losses are paying for the riches of companies which have decided that "the customer is the enemy".

At its core, The Informant! is, by no means, an inherently funny story. It involves international corporate conspiracies, corruption, deception and betrayal. Yet somehow, Steven Soderbergh manages to turn Kurt Eichenwald's book, which depicts the true story of former ADM employee Mark Whitacre in the manner of John Grisham's best legal thrillers, into a thoroughly entertaining, often very funny movie. This, of course, is aided by Matt Damon's brilliant, spot-on portrayal of the corporate executive-turned-FBI informant, as well as solid work by the supporting cast.

When I first read Eichenwald's book after learning about this movie, I was slightly skeptical. Economics and law are far from my forte. However, what I found was a story so ridiculous and told in such a compelling way that it was difficult to put the book down. Especially for a nonfiction story, the characters felt so well-developed and so three-dimensional that you cannot help but care immensely about them, despite their flaws. And then, I heard that Soderbergh planned to make the movie version into a dark comedy. Given some of the subject matter and material involved, I was worried that the film would turn into too much of a farce and would not give the real-life story and people the proper respect.

To my utter relief, I was wrong. While some of the darker elements have been left out and the film is undoubtedly lighter than its source material, Soderbergh stayed true to reality, keeping the events mostly accurate to what Eichenwald described in his book, and hence, to what really happened; in fact, on a side note, after seeing the movie, the real-life Mark Whitacre commented that the film was "very accurate", which is a bit of a surprise considering Soderbergh made the decision to not consult any of the people involved in the actual 1990s investigation.

Oddly enough, while this probably sounds contradictory to the opening statement of my review, much of the humor actually springs out of the events and dialogue depicted in the book, almost all of which took place in reality, rather than jokes or quips written by the screenwriter or improvised by the director or actors. There are so many hidden layers to the tale that, in retrospect, it is hard to not laugh or at least gap in wonder at how it all unfolded. Of course, that is not to say that Scott Z. Burns, who adapted Einchenwald's book for the screen, did not do any work. The screenplay does an admirable job of adhering to the true events with enough creativity, wit and originality to prevent the film from seeming like just a retread of everything Einchenwald accomplished in his narrative.

Also impressive is the cast. Naturally, as Mark Whitacre, Matt Damon stands out. Even though he had not met the person he was portraying before filming, he perfectly captures Whitacre's personality, mannerisms and attitude, making him seem larger-than-life but at the same time, completely and utterly human, while many other actors might have made him too much of a caricature. The supporting cast does a fine job as well and perhaps the most noteworthy of these actors are Scott Bakula as the benignly professional FBI agent Brian Shepard and Melanie Lynskey, who portrays Whitacre's devoted wife, Ginger, with a sort of Mid-western bubbliness.

In typical Steven Soderbergh mode, the director adds a quirky, unique tone to the movie. Although the whimsical, almost cartoonish score is sometimes a bit intrusive, this quaint style effectively mirrors the film's subtle and often ironic humor, and instead of being distracting, the cinematography, complete with the intense lighting and vibrant colors that make Soderbergh's films so distinctly his, helps emphasize the movie's off-beat wackiness. From the opening credits, viewers are immersed in the simple, charming vibe of small-town Illinois; this ambiance is benefited by the fact that Soderbergh chose to film in Decatur, the very town in which the real-life events occurred. Everything feels authentic, from the hairstyles to the ADM office and even the colorful array of ties sported by various cast members throughout the movie.

Furthermore, by using voice-over narration, Soderbergh effectively manages to enter the mind of Mark Whitacre, who is, to say the least, an extremely fascinating personality. Partly thanks to Matt Damon's nuanced performance, the audience learns to sympathize with - if not root for - Mark, regardless of his moral ambiguity and questionable decisions. Perhaps, more than anything else, this is because the movie never makes fun of him, only at his nearly unbelievable situation. Not once is he made out to be a completely villainous guy or a complete hero; he is merely human.

Liar Liar, Pants on Fire! I was once told that only the truth can set one free, then again there's this thing about truth which is an entire can of worms as well. Anyway, with lies come bigger lies to cover previous ones, and before you know it, unless you're one heck of a skilled liar, it just snowballs until it gets out of control, and you wonder just how you might just break this circle should you come clean. Sort of.

Which brings us to Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, where we follow the (mis)adventures of a company whistle blower, who acted in his own self, delusional interest in believing that confessing to the Feds his activity and what he intimately knows about his company's shenanigans in price-fixing, would absolve him of his guilt, and hey, fast track him to the CEO position as well, since he's wearing the white hat and with the good guys. But little does everyone know that Matt Damon's Mark Whitacre has some serious personal issues, which we gleefully laugh along with, until we realize that it is something that has potential to torpedo his credibility.

Matt Damon probably got everyone sit up and take notice with his action-hero persona in Jason Bourne in the Bourne trilogy of films, where his talk-less-kick-arse-more character had everyone heralding the era of shaky-camera-work in action films. Here, it seems that Soderbergh had plucked Damon from his Ocean's films, identifying that he can play low-key with aplomb, and does so as the lead protagonist in the film, without whom I believe this movie will fall flat.

Damon hides behind that thick moustache and paunch to bring out possibly one of his best roles in recent years highlighting some serious versatility so far unseen, punctuated by a quirky narrative complete with a very 80s feel in art direction. The film worked on a couple of levels, and while the trailer would like you to believe that Mark Whitacre was some kind of Johnny English or Maxwell Smart styled undercover spy buffoon, the character here is anything but and smarter than the trailer made it out to be. There's also no laugh out loud humour that it had suggested, but plenty of wry ones, thanks to some hilarious voiceovers reflecting Whitacre's thought process at that moment, that had topics ranging from anything under the sun, again tying in very closely to Whitacre's condition. One moment he's supposed to listen attentively to a plan, the next he's thinking aloud about cheap ties.

Alas the story did feel weighted as it dragged on for a wee bit too long, accentuating something which the audience would already know about by then, but just wanted to push it all a little further to the point of no return. Thanks to some excellent makeup, you'll get to see Damon like you've never seen him before, and that's basically what The Informant! is all about. A Matt Damon vehicle where he gets the chance to show that he's not just all action and no talk. Some insights into shady corporate deals with kickbacks, corruption and lack of corporate governance will appeal, and probably so would the stifling processes that the FBI, with Scott Bakula heading the cast, have to deal with a none too bright collaborator from within.

Not Soderbergh's best work, but one which adds gravitas to Matt Damon's filmography.

I suppose I will always find something to like in a Soderbergh movie. The real joy is in never knowing just what that will be. Even in his most mainstream projects he is exploring some new skill. Here it is the notion of narration.

I'll have to see this a second time with a DVD stop button to be able to fully catalog all the various modes that our filmmaker skips seamlessly through. The main device he weaves these modes around is the spine of the untrusted narrator. We have all sorts of layers and nodes of deception with the only ones we can really trust being the guys usually are the bottom of the garbage bin: the massive greedy company.

We have this fellow being dishonest to everyone, including himself. We have no idea where the line is that he actually believes and we hear only from him. Some of the internal dialog is hypnotizing: we are lulled into accepting it because so much of it is appealingly funny. It is a great trick of misdirection, allowing us to associate with this slippery reality.

Folded into this is are the watchers, nominally the FBI, then various lawyers and the wife, but us of course, punctuated by a video at the end directly to us (with the FBI behind a mirror).

A second surprise awaited me beyond the Soderbergh stretching. Matt Damon finally does something impressive. He is truly something worth watching here. I never would have guessed. I never would have believed. In fact, this wouldn't have worked at all, this suspended belief within the story, if he had not so believably become the character.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The Informant! (2009)

Slightly comic, slightly silly, overtly serious movie (or taking itself seriously, maybe) that is fun but not especially funny or great. It's not terribly made or anything, but doesn't quite find a groove, the way comedies like this, without a lot of punch lines, require. The humor here, a kind of charcoal gray with glitter in it (not a black comedy at all) is about the odd ambiance behind seemingly ordinary reactions.

Maybe I was in a bad mood, but even the groovy, effective 1970s music, which I love, came off as too cool and trendy for its own good, especially since the movie was set in the 1990s. Likewise, the flashy

typeface used for captions now and then is more distracting than "fun."

The whole idea of an informant going slightly rogue, partly by not quite getting what's going on, is crazy enough to work. The stereotypes are easy to get, and easy to work off of. And more tragic twists as it goes lose their surface humor, of course, but the movie still keeps a glossy, glib, entertaining glide.

Matt Damon? He's his usual self, determined to be a good actor and succeeding, even at a kind of silly/serious part. I like him, and I like him here. The fact the plot is based on truth is interesting, but by luck (bad luck maybe) I just saw The Insider where the same idea (with Crowe as the Damon equivalent) was taken with utter seriousness, and more impressively.

The Informant is a good movie with a reasonable plot and a terrific comedic cast. The actors are really what makes this movie, it is star studded, filled with many great, hilarious comedians who add a lot of great ad libbed dialogue. However, even with all the comedy actors, Matt Damon still steals the show. He plays a character unlike anyone he's done before with Mark Whitacre, a clumsy FBI informant, a far shot away from the likes of Jason Bourne or Will Hunting.

I found the plot to be lackluster, it never really reeled me in, jumping from one character and plot point to another, but without ever taking the time to truly intrigue its audience. It also drags quite a bit, going on for about twenty minutes longer than it should have.

I felt Whitacre could have been more layered, considering the fact that we are following him for almost two hours. The dialogue and humour of the character is very one note, at times feeling like less of a joke for how out of place he is in the story, and more like poor writing.

Seeing Damon in such a polar opposite role from what we are used to is good fun, even if the movie was not as entertaining as it could have been. Funny and with a top notch cast, The Informant certainly overstays its welcome but it is worth the watch if you are looking for an enjoyable, easy to watch comedy, just do not go out of your way to see it.

The US government begin searching for a businessman after receiving what may be classified information from an informant.

Best Performance: Matt Damon

On paper and in theory, this should fire on all cylinders. There are no slouches here -- Soderbergh included -- but the film doesn't really start to lift off until near the end. I think the problem is that Whiteacre's such an obvious liar (an something of a toady) that his stories never really gain much traction, and the result that was meant to be suspenseful and funny is much closer to boring, disappointing, and exasperating. There are flashes here and there where the film was genuinely funny, but those moments had more to do with an actor's delivery than what was set up on the page. I can hardly fault anyone for leaping into this feet first, though: the plan and vision would have looked like sure success.

To let you know where I stand, I will preface this review with an admission that is not too Earthshaking - I am not a Soderbergh fan. Not that I hate the guy or even dislike him, I have just never been drawn to films he has directed. However, I loved one he helped produce - Michael Clayton. The Informant is no Michael Clayton. While Clayton was about all the people, The Informant was all about the seemingly innocent family man, Mark Whitacre.

Mark Whitacre, a hard working and dedicated family man, was caught up in a world of corporate greed so it was no doubt one would feel sorry for him as the story went on. For about half the movie, as I waited for the first opportunity to laugh at what was called a comedic crime/drama, I found myself getting anxious and bored. I knew we were supposed to laugh sometime(soon, I had hoped) and it was obvious there was a crime, but while I yawned extensively the end result was casually building up piece by piece. The funny parts exposed themselves slowly but not always appreciated. The funny parts became sad. Strangely, thats when I began to appreciate the movie. Corporate conspiracy was a primary focus of this movie, and probably kept this movie from becoming what it could have been.

You really can't go into this movie expecting huge laughs. The laughter is second to the nature of man in the corporate world. And that world keeps this movie from being a good comedy or crime/drama. Sad to say, this is only sightly better than acceptable.

6/10 - a nod to Damon, Scott Bakula and Joel McHale for their efforts

I think this might be Damons best performance since the Good Will Hunting movie. At least it felt to me like that. And I'm not saying that to put movies like Bourne or Oceans down, they are a lot of fun (on different levels), but performance wise he didn't have to stretch that many "muscles" (action wise on the other hand, he obviously had to, at least with the Bourne Trilogy).

The story is pretty simple and the anti "Hero" is quite ordinary. Which might make it less appealing to a large audience, but it wasn't aimed to crack the box office. Soderbergh captures a weird feeling in this movie, that leaves you with a weird taste at the end. Of course, you could argue, that the movie shows too little of Damons wife, maybe even too little of his employer. But as it is, it's a pretty solid and greatly edited work.

Even the voice over, which seems and is completely out of place, works really good in this movie. I guess even the Team America members would change their opinion of "Matt Damon" after watching this one. Give it a try, but don't expect laugh out loud comedy (not the ordinary kind that is).

Offbeat movie that, with limited success, tries to make light of some serious stuff involving corporate corruption at the highest managerial levels. What makes this even more significant is that the events dramatized in this movie are supposedly based on actual events which, if true, calls into question the reliability of witnesses in criminal investigations who themselves are criminals. Embezzlement and fraud are serious crimes, but when a person committing such serious crimes becomes a star witness for a full-blown government investigation targeting a major international corporation, then this cast a huge, dark shadow over the credibility of criminal investigation itself. This movie is also about to what lengths government officials are willing to believe such unsavory informants even as these informants continue to flagrantly break numerous laws. Matt Damon gives an excellent performance as the main character, Mark Whitacre, a man who on his own initiative feeds the government information while he continues to embezzle huge sums of money. The movie shows how the government almost becomes complicit in Whitacre's's criminal behavior and how it causes an incredible and irreparable amount of damage. Does being an informant absolve one of guilt for crimes committed? Watch the movie and find out.

They had written "unbelievable" on the poster. And that's what this true story was. As was Matt Damon's performance. But the character he played was so unlikable and the dialog so over the top that even the best performance of his career couldn't help this movie to really stand out for me.