Review: 'The Informant!'

There was a great deal of controversy earlier this summer when Sony Pictures cancelled production on Steven Soderbergh's film Moneyball, set to star Brad Pitt. And while I think it was a real scumbag move on Amy Pascal's part to pull the plug the weekend before the film was to begin shooting, I can now think of one reason why she would do such a thing: she must have seen The Informant!

With The Informant!, Soderbergh treats the audience with a mix of disdain, and respect for their intelligence. I saw it once and I really feel like I need to see it again. It's one of those films that throws the whole story on its head in a way that cannot be predicted, and I felt like I had been duped. Which was the point, but still, it feels like a nasty little trick. At a certain point in the film, I could see where Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns were pulling the strings. And while it was a fun little joke, I still got the impression that they were laughing at me, rather than with me.

Once I got past this bit of scorn (it still stings a little), I began to appreciate The Informant! for what it is: an entertaining, brutally self aware film about just how messy and tangled up things can get in the corporate world. I'm not questioning the quality of the story, just the way that it was told. There I go again bringing it up - maybe I'm not over the whole thing just yet.

Matt Damon gives a really brilliant performance as Mark Whitaker, vice president of ADM, who helps the F.B.I. to uncover a price fixing scam involving major companies around the world. It's hard to get into the details of the film without giving away some spoilers, but I promise to give nothing away.

Whitaker spends 2 1/2 years working with the F.B.I. (this is all a true story, by the way). He gets audio and video recordings of meetings in which representatives from companies got together in conference rooms to discuss how they would rip off consumers. The F.B.I. Agents, played by Scott Bakula and Joel McHale (who both do a great job), are protective of Whitaker. They know that once the evidence is compiled and the bust on ADM goes down, Mark Whitaker will be out of a job.

What happens next I won't reveal. The thing that makes The Informant! worth seeing is that as it sets up its world like a comedy (casting comedic actors like Tony Hale and Patton Oswald, as well as others), it is keeping some very serious matters just below the surface. What does it mean to do justice? How important is financial security? If one is to blow the whistle at the company, to what extend should the government protect him? What Soderbergh gets so well is that he never forgets that everyone involved is a real person: complex, interesting, flawed. Even when Whitaker tries to do the right thing, it won't change him as a person, no matter how much money he saves for the consumer public.

With The Informant! and his two previous films, The Girlfriend Experience and Che, Soderbergh is establishing himself as easily the most interesting and prolific filmmaker out right now. Like Mark Whitaker, you don't know what he's going to do next. He's got best friends like Matt Damon and George Clooney, he can throw "From the director of Ocean's 11, 12, and 13" on any movie poster. Studios want to put him in a box, but they can't catch him. He'll make a film for $80 million, $50 million, $20 million or half a million dollars. What can you do to a man whom you can't buy? And how can you trust him? You fumble around and bite your nails. And if you're a studio president, you probably end up pulling the plug on a film two days before it begins shooting. [A-] - Ryan Sartor.