Did I love The Informant!? I’m actually wearing an “I Heart Steven Soderbergh” shirt right now. Isn’t that what you want to hear?
Well, you at least know the plot, right? No? Here it is: Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) works for a lysine production company called ADM that participates in illegal price-fixing. Whitacre blows the whistle on his company, but the problem is that he doesn’t know how to blow. Whitacre bumbles and babbles as he attempts to stay on the right side of the bars. Poor Whitacre.
The Informant! is Soderbergh’s best film. It’s even better than Ocean’s Eleven. What more do you want? What? You want the truth? Okay. So maybe it doesn’t quite reach the playful caliber of Eleven, but it seamlessly mixes comedy with a character analysis.
Am I done yet? Fine, fine. Here it goes: maybe the comedy and drama don’t exactly mesh. In fact, they are constantly fighting each other for room on the screen. The stale Napolean Dynamite humor cuts off before it has time to develop or allow the audience to revel in the genius quirks.
For example, the hardest knee-slapping moment is cut short when Whitacre opens up his briefcase at an ADM meeting to reveal his wires to the FBI camera. Soderbergh manages for a moment to get us screaming with the FBI yelling “No! Don’t do it!” and then circumcises it. It’s unfortunate Soderbergh cannot tell the good scenes from the bad. Within split seconds, the scene has shifted to something else, going off tangents running out of Whitacre’s mind.
There’s one more thing I forgot to tell you: the biopic pieces aren’t used to good effect. Soderbergh attempts to dramatize Whitacre’s life, hinting at and performing a drive-by on Whitacre’s mental illness. If Soderbergh aimed to create a palpable uncomfortable twisting in our stomachs for laughing at Whitacre, then, “Congratulations, Soderbergh, you put a bullet in it.”
Last thing. I promise. I actually did find things in the movie that I enjoyed. Although not much interesting is going on visually (due to the dull off-white colors of the offices and the realistic tones of the RED Camera), the music is the cool breeze blowing on your face on a 100 degree summer day. The James Bond/80s Game Show hybrid score sets a unique comedic tone. The simplicity of the score plays off of Whitacre’s predictable unpredictability. The Informant! hits its highest notes when music is playing and the camera catches the explosive eyes of a cop or a lawyer after disapproving of yet another thing Whitacre has done. No dialogue, just the comic musical tone and a reflection of our own shock shown on screen.
But so much of The Informant! bases itself on words, and specifically Whitacre’s words. Whitacre’s words continually get him into trouble. We are spiraling down a claustrophobic water slide with him, high above the ground. I didn’t really want to say this, but on-screen reactions to Whitacre are quite possibly more interesting than Whitacre himself. When Whitacre’s parents get word that he has denounced them as dead, his father pauses and nonchalantly remarks, “That’s kinda weird.” It’s precise timing for the complete awkwardness to set in.
Matt Damon as Whitacre doesn’t replicate these comedic tones. His fast talking and periodic rests for cheek-slicing grins are spot on for his oblivious character’s astronomical ego. But in doing so, he sacrifices his punchy lines. When Whitacre enters ADM with a wire in his coat, he gives a commentary every step of the way. Damon’s lines fall and tumble on each other. They can’t get back up because the next one is coming right behind to ram it.
Now I finally get it. I finally understand the recurring images of Honest Abe and the eagle statues: I’m supposed to be completely honest. No more lies. Curse you, Soderbergh. Now I’m probably one out of a hundred people willing to admit that Matt Damon isn’t the Son of God in this movie.
But Soderbergh misinterprets his own film. In the opening of The Informant!, the disclaimer that the film is based on real people is followed by “So there.” This unabashed carelessness of the material and genre hopscotching make him no different from Whitacre. Soderbergh too follows through with half-baked intentions of revealing something that is whole and full. Mr. Soderbergh, I suggest you pick up the pieces and take your own advice. So there.
