SCREEN IT! ARTISTIC REVIEW: THE INFORMANT!

"THE INFORMANT!"
(2009) (Matt Damon, Scott Bakula) (R)
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QUICK TAKE:
Dark comedy: An earnest corporate whistleblower is found to be just as corrupt as those he's turning in to the Feds.

PLOT:
In the early 1990s, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) junior executive Mark Whitacre (MATT DAMON) became convinced that if he helped the FBI gather enough evidence against his company's illegal price-fixing activities, he would look like a hero to the firm's board of directors and be elevated to president. After making contact with Special Agent Shepard (SCOTT BAKULA), Whitacre spends most of the next three years taping conversations, positioning hidden cameras, and handing over documents that seemingly give the federal government an airtight case.
When the arrest warrants are handed down, ADM's executive staff led by Vice Chairman Mick Andreas (TOM PAPA) and Head of Corporate Security Mark Cheviron (TOM WILSON) hire corporate attorney Aubrey Daniel (CLANCY BROWN) and devote significant man hours to dig up dirt on Whitacre, who has also taken part in his own fraud scheme to hide millions of payoffs in offshore accounts.
As the case falls apart, Whitacre is shown to be a seriously unbalanced individual. He ignores Shepard's repeated pleas not to talk to the media and tells lie upon lie until it is discovered that he has a bipolar disorder. Left out to dry by the Feds, Whitacre and his supportive wife, Ginger (MELANIE LYNSKEY), feel the pressure as seemingly everyone turns on them.

OUR TAKE: 5 out of 10
In a time when Wall Street and capitalism, in general, has come under fire as a result of unscrupulous practices on the part of executives and their associates, are we really ready for a bouncy, jokey, almost precious take on corporate greed and the price we all pay as a result? Director Steven Soderbergh and actor Matt Damon sure think we are.
With their film "The Informant!" hitting screens this week amid mounting job losses and the ongoing recession, their timing is a little off for cracking wise on bad executives doing bad things. As a result, the movie feels a little "off."
Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, a junior executive at Archer Daniels Midland. Based on the real-life story set in the early 1990s, the film opens with the FBI called in on a corporate sabotage case to which Mark is instructed to give false testimony.
Soon, though, his wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey) is urging him to come clean about all of the company's dirty dealings, most notably its global lysine price fixing. Mark deludes himself into thinking that by blowing the whistle on ADM, he will be hailed as a hero by the firm's board of directors and be made president.
Mark's world starts to crumble after the subsequent bust. After refusing the company's legal counsel, ADM executives - led by Vice Chairman Mick Andreas (Tom Papa) and Head of Security Mark Cheviron (Tom Wilson -- yeah, Biff from "Back to the Future!") - conspire to release evidence that Whitacre is the real criminal, having conjured up much of the charges to steer attention away from his own corporate crimes.
As it turns out, Whitacre is found to be suffering from bipolar disorder, which has only served to exacerbate his reckless criminal behavior over the years. Soderbergh thinks this is hilarious. He even employs composer Marvin Hamlisch to write a bouncy, jazzy score that sounds like a cross between music from an old Doris Day comedy and a 1960s-era corporate training film.
Damon, meanwhile, gives a consistent and technically impressive performance as kind of a cross between Ned Flanders and Jeffrey Wigand. He's in practically every scene of this film and delivers a dominating performance. This is Damon's film through and through, and the rest of the cast is really there just to carry the man's luggage from scene to scene.
But the whole thing is played at such a snarky, point-and-laugh distance that the audience is more of a spectator to the whole story rather than a part of it. Soderbergh's style here is closer to his Danny Ocean movies than his more substantial work in "Traffic." It's a calculated style that doesn't quite fit the subject matter, even though there are some big laughs to be mined here.
At the very least, you will log onto Wikipedia immediately after the movie and maybe even buy the Kurt Eichenwald book this flick is based on just to see how much was real and how much was put-on. Because there was a much better movie to be made here, "The Informant" rates only as a 5 out of 10. (T. Durgin)

Reviewed September 10, 2009 / Posted September 18, 2009

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