MOVIE REVIEW ARCHIVE | THEATER INFO | MOVIE LISTINGS
White Knight, White Heat
The return of Steven Soderbergh
by Jason Blair
THE INFORMANT!: Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Written by Scott Z. Burns, based on the book by Kurt Eichenwald. Cinematography by Soderbergh. Music, Marvin Hamlisch. Starring Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale and Melanie Lynskey. Warner Bros., 2009. R. 108 minutes. 
Sterling Morrison, the bassist for the Velvet Underground, once said, “We may have been dragging each other off a cliff, but we were going in the same direction.” Mutual destruction, however profitable or creative, is at the heart of The Informant!, an exceptional dark comedy about a corporate whistleblower who stumbles on the road to glory. Based upon actual events, The Informant! is the story of biochemist Mark Whitacre, a brilliant but self-deluded family man who, despite taking down corporate titan Archer Daniels Midland, served a prison sentence longer than the men he helped convict. He is remembered not as a hero but as a goofball and tattle-tale. Although he single-handedly exposed a global price-fixing conspiracy, netting the government record antitrust penalties, he so confounded the FBI with loopy fabrications that eventually he became their target. Until the bitter end, his motto was “It feels good to talk!”
 |
| Matt Damon in The Informant! |
To his credit, director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s Eleven) stages The Informant! as a light, zany romp, a comedy with mild thriller elements set amidst the tall corn of Decatur, Ill. For a while, it’s a straight story, crisply told: Eccentric nerd (played by Damon) turns insider, taking down the fat cats behind high fructose corn syrup. But there’s something off about Whitacre’s offbeat charm, something stirring in his seemingly disconnected (but increasingly relevant) interior monologues, which cover subjects from polar bears to Japanese underwear. Simply put, Whitacre isn’t completely there. Compare this to Michael Mann’s The Insider, a worthy film which nevertheless feels aggressive by comparison, all anger to The Informant’s repressed hidden depths. And that’s the point: The self-doubt at the heart of both films is so subverted in The Informant!, so butterfly-light in the character of Whitacre — a guy who can keep neither his mouth shut nor his story straight — that the film’s soft touch is both highly deceptive and a nearly perfect format in which to present such massive fraud. Or frauds, if you will. The tone may be light, but as subjects go, it doesn’t get any heavier.
Damon, who gained 30 pounds for The Informant!, is as chatty and energetic as he’s ever been. He’s displayed a nimble feel for comedy before, primarily in the Ocean’s films, but usually as a mumbling introvert. Donning a hairpiece and a cop moustache, both of which make him oddly impotent, Damon lets it rip and scores big in The Informant!. His FBI contact is Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula), a gentle but committed agent who, as Whitacre’s handler, suffers death by a thousand cuts. Bakula, for all I can tell, time-traveled directly from his Quantum Leap days; he now resembles a young Leonard Nimoy, a fitting likeness given his effective, dry-as-toast performance. The Informant! even gets the little things right, like the exclamation point in the title (which doesn’t appear in Kurt Eichenwald’s book), the zippy, exuberant music and the casting of stand-up comics like Patton Oswalt and Joel McHale as seasoned FBI agents. I particularly enjoyed Melanie Lynskey (Away We Go) as Whitacre’s wife, the gummy but solid Ginger. Lynskey is slated to appear in two more films this year, and I’m convinced she’s here to stay. She’s just one reason The Informant! is a refreshingly quiet film that manages to speak volumes.
A Note From the Publisher
Dear Readers,
The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.
That’s because of you!
Not just because of financial support (though that matters enormously), but because of the emails, notes, conversations, encouragement and ideas you shared along the way. You reminded us why this paper exists and who it’s for.
Listening to readers has always been at the heart of Eugene Weekly. This year, that meant launching our popular weekly Activist Alert column, after many of you told us there was no single, reliable place to find information about rallies, meetings and ways to get involved. You asked. We responded.
We’ve also continued to deepen the coverage that sets Eugene Weekly apart, including our in-depth reporting on local real estate development through Bricks & Mortar — digging into what’s being built, who’s behind it and how those decisions shape our community.
And, of course, we’ve continued to bring you the stories and features many of you depend on: investigations and local government reporting, arts and culture coverage, sudoku and crossword puzzles, Savage Love, and our extensive community events calendar. We feature award-winning stories by University of Oregon student reporters getting real world journalism experience. All free. In print and online.
None of this happens by accident. It happens because readers step up and say: this matters.
As we head into a new year, please consider supporting Eugene Weekly if you’re able. Every dollar helps keep us digging, questioning, celebrating — and yes, occasionally annoying exactly the right people. We consider that a public service.
Thank you for standing with us!
Publisher
Eugene Weekly
P.S. If you’d like to talk about supporting EW, I’d love to hear from you!
jody@eugeneweekly.com
(541) 484-0519