The Informant!: Unreliably Good

"What are you doing this weekend?"
"Going to see the Informant tonight with my sister and her friend. Feel free to tag along"
"Sounds good."

This, and only this, is what lead me to go see 'The Informant!', the based-on-a-true-story dark comedy directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon. If not for this text message exchange, I probably wouldn't have ponied up the cash for the ticket. Not because it didn't look entertaining in the trailers. It just didn't seem compelling. "Matt Damon as a hapless FBI informer? Meh." I'm not sure what I would have needed to see in advance to turn 'The Informant! from a "might watch" to a "must see." Sexier actresses or funnier clips might have helped, but not likely. The problem is that Matt Damon is becoming a victim of his own success. I've seen him and loved him in too many roles to settle for less exciting parts. Fortunately, he turns in another great performance in a story that is entertaining and intellectually challenging.


The story of 'the Informant!' centers around Mark Whitacre, president of the bioproducts division at agricultural conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland. Whitacre has been witness to rampant price-fixing at ADM and decides to blow the whistle on his colleagues. At the behest of his wife, Whitacre confesses to the FBI what he knows and agrees to become an informant. For the next several years, Whitacre secretly records hours and hours of meetings and conversations with his employers by wearing a wire and helping videotape meetings. His motives are initially unclear, saying only that he "sees himself wearing a white hat, while the other guys are wearing black hats."

Steven Soderbergh makes a lot of smart moves in this film and does a great job of making a dialogue-driven story entertaining to watch. To transition between scenes, Soderbergh has Damon narrate tidbits of Whitacre's insights into the world over mini-montages of travel scenes or setting up covert activities. This stream-of-consciousness narration might have been my favorite part of the movie. Not only are they the hilarious ramblings of someone possibly suffering from OCD, they also do a fantastic job of developing Matt Damon's character and at the same time give the movie a great sense of flow. Flow isn't always easy to accomplish in a film that relies on the dialogue to do the heavy lifting. As the story doesn't exactly take place in a picturesque setting (unless you like corn and hotel rooms), Soderbergh did exactly what he needed to do to give the movie some variety visually and with regard to tempo.

The film also does a tremendous job of introducing the concept of an unreliable narrator and transitioning Whitacre from a clear-cut hero to a far more ambiguous one. It's not just a simple matter of the way the scenes were shot or lit. It's nothing short of the way the entire story is progressed, and it starts with our lead character. Throughout the entire movie, Mark Whitacre does not change as a character. More information about him is constantly being revealed, but at his core he is the same person at the end of the movie as he is at the beginning. That's true of the entire cast. Nobody undergoes any significant change or makes any personal progress as a character. This presents a story-telling challenge.

One of the most common methods of story progression is to have either the protagonist or someone related to him undergo some sort of shift in character. 'The Informant!' solves this challenge not by changing Mark Whitacre or the characters surrounding him, but by changing the characters surrounding Mark Whitacre.

When we begin the film, Whitacre is surrounded by his family and his FBI handlers. At this point, Whitacre is represented as a "White Hat." We move from "White Hat" Mark to "Grey Hat" Mark, surrounded by his FBI handlers and his own lawyers, to finally "Black Hat" Mark Whitacre, surrounded by his own lawyers and FBI prosecutors. The essence of each character never changes, but the characters themselves do, advancing the story in the process. It is an interesting and uncommon story-telling technique, uncommon at least in mainstream American cinema. And even though I enjoyed watching it unfold, it was this technique that ultimately lead to the film's difficulty in achieving resolution of its plot points.

Whitacre's narration drives the entire film, which as previously stated is often hilarious and couldn't have been delivered more perfectly by Matt Damon. But because Whitacre is surrounded by only himself in prison, he has no visibility of the other characters and plot lines. This means he is unable to narrate the story that remains, leaving the resolution of the overarching drama regarding the price-fixers to an epilogue that isn't narrated but rather displayed in text on the screen. The abrupt shift leads to an unsatisfying degree of closure in which the resolution feels rushed and mistreated. It is a poor ending for an otherwise gratifying film.

Overall, 'The Informant!' is a highly entertaining movie and worth your time if you're up for a comedy or something more dramatic. Matt Damon does nothing short of killing his role. Joel McHale should have traded roles with Scott Bakula. Scott Bakula should have traded roles with the grip who makes sure there are donuts on set at all times. I hate to say it, but Bakula is inching dangerously close to Keanu Reeves, "I have only one facial expression and I'm going to hump it for all it's worth" territory. I'd say he should stick to science fiction, but he also single-handedly torpedoed the latest Star Trek iteration. Tough break for a guy who owned at least part of the '80s. Regardless, go see this movie. And if you need someone to watch it with, send me a text.