The opening title card of "The Informant!" states how it's based on a true story, but certain aspects of it have been dramatized. And it has its own punchline: "So there," it reads.
Knowing nothing about the real Mark Whitacre, I believe, likely enhanced my enjoyment of the film, based on the book by New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald, titled "The Informant." I assume the exclamation point added to director Steven Soderbergh's movie typographically represents such dramatizations -- and Matt Damon's characterization of Whitacre brings that punctuation to life.
'The Informant'
Rated: R for language
Cast: Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Melanie Lynskey, Tom Papa
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Run time: 108 minutes
In Damon's hands, there's a little gee-whiz howdily-doodily in this man's speech, and a pinch of nerdiness in his overall demeanor. But he avoids turning Whitacre into a broad stereotype, prudently using overstated humor, and the character slowly, subtly becomes larger than life. As the film unspools, we realize Whitacre is kind of a goofball, but he's no dummy, and eventually, we get a glimpse of the ego beneath his awful haircut, sandy mustache and suburban pudge.
Whitacre, you see, is a guy who wants to feel important. He's a biochemist-turned-vice-president at Archer Daniels Midland, a massive agricultural-processing business. For years, he played ball with the company's dirty price-fixing schemes, but when the FBI came knocking to investigate some unrelated corporate skullduggery, he spilled his guts, donned a wire and piled up a case against ADM.
To reveal this is not a spoiler. "The Informant!" goes further and deeper into the investigation than we-who-don't-know-much-about-the-real-story may expect. Soderbergh wisely doesn't bog the film down with the inner workings of its spy story -- he intentionally blots out key moments of plot-propelling dialogue with kitschy music or Whitacre's extraordinarily funny non-sequitir voice-over narration, suggesting the whole point of the movie is not What Happens, but the utterly confounding, nearly anarchical manner in which this guy's brain functions.
Join Press film critic John Serba for a discussion of "The Informant!" for his movie-chat series My 2 Cents at 1 p.m. Sunday at Celebration Cinema North, 2121 Celebration Drive NE, 530-7469.
So there's a purposeful deflation of tension here, which keeps the tone light. But in the context of ongoing character development, we realize the film's featherweight qualities are an all-too-appropriate deception. It's a character study with its humor deeply ingrained; Soderbergh and Damon have succeeded in adding an exclamation point to Whitacre's story without sacrificing its insight.
E-mail John Serba: jserba@grpress.com