MARK WHITACRE (Matt Damon) is a really, really likeable guy:
Chipper, earnest, and eager to please, Whitacre’s a high-ranking
employee at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), a massive industrial food
conglomerate headquartered in Decatur, Illinois. He’s done pretty well
for himself, too: An orphan who was adopted by a wealthy patron, he
ended up going to a good school, marrying a cute girl, Ginger (Melanie
Lynskey), and stumbling into a lucrative job at ADM (where, as Whitacre
says, “corn goes in one end and profit comes out the other”). He’s an
affable, excitable guy, the sort of man whose wife calls him “Corky,”
and as he tools around in his Ferrari, or Porsche, or BMW, or Mercedes,
or Land Rover, inevitably thinking ridiculous thoughts to himself, it’s
impossible to not enjoy being in the guy’s company.
As likeable as he is, though, he sure as hell isn’t cut out to be a
secret agent—though it’s not as if an annoying fact like that
stops him from becoming one. “What I’m about to tell you,” Whitacre
says dramatically early in The Informant!, “involves something
very large.” Spilling his guts to FBI Special Agent Brian Shepard
(Scott Bakula), Whitacre reveals a vast story of corporate skulduggery
at ADM, which has been conspiring with its competitors on an
international price-fixing racket.
Shepard, happy to bust some white-collar crooks, takes the
bait—and soon enough, Whitacre’s wearing a wire, awkwardly trying
to trick his coworkers into revealing ADM’s schemes, and comparing his
predicament to something out of a Michael Crichton or John Grisham
novel. At one point, he lets it slip that he calls himself
“double-oh-fourteen,” having convinced himself that he’s “twice as
smart as 007.” He isn’t.
Based on a true story, The Informant! is one of director
Steven Soderbergh’s best films—and considering the dude’s other
work (Traffic, Che, Ocean’s Eleven, The
Limey, Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich), that’s saying
a hell of a lot. It’s certainly Soderbergh’s funniest movie to date:
The Informant! tells a story that could’ve been ominous and
preachy, but with Scott Z. Burns’ razor-sharp script (which is based on
the book by Kurt Eichenwald) and a sly, goofy, insightful tone,
Soderbergh makes this thing ridiculously funny and surprisingly
involving. (It doesn’t hurt that Soderbergh’s lined up an
abso-fucking-lutely perfect cast: Damon and Bakula offer amazing
performances, and they’re backed up by Lynskey, The Soup‘s Joel
McHale, Arrested Development‘s Tony Hale [I love you Buster!],
Ann Cusack, Patton Oswalt, and—sure, why not!—the Smothers
Brothers.) Sometimes deadpan and sometimes absurd, The
Informant! is fantastic from beginning to end, and man, look at
that—I’m running of space. Considering I’m not gonna run out of
great things to say about The Informant! anytime soon, I’ll just
sum this up quickly, easily, succinctly: Go.
