THE INFORMANT! (2009) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Steven Soderbergh
Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Melanie Lynskey,
Patton Oswalt, Ann Dowd, Clancy Brown,
Candy Clark, Tom Smothers, Dick Smothers
There's an old saying that it's always better to tell the truth, because lying leaves you with too much to remember. That's an escalating problem for the character Matt Damon plays in "The Informant!", a reverse-spin variation on "The Insider" , about a high-level corporate-player-turned FBI-mole with intimate knowledge of a worldwide price-fixing acheme. Going in, Mark Whitacre seems a lot like some of the other button-down types Damon has played - a straight-arrow middle-American with a family in the suburbs and a sense of right and wrong that compels him to act. But the longer the story plays out, and the more Whitacre talks - and talks and talks - the more something just seems fishy. It's a gradual process, and while it's hard to work up much sympathy for Whitacre, or anybody else in the film, the skill with which Damon and Soderbergh document his unraveling is masterful. And comical, from his pretentious voiceover narration to his increasingly ill-fitting toupee. Watch for a couple of famous late-'60s television stars in cameo roles.
Tom Smothers
1937-2023
