The Informant

Editorial

"Everyone in this country is a victim of corporate crime by the time they finish breakfast" declares a whistleblower as he tries hard to get the government (and audiences of this film) interested in financial shenanigans in the international wheat-extract business. There are no besuited hitmen or suspicious one-car accidents here, though Whitacre is so exasperating that the temptation to have him whacked must have been almost irresistible. In most whistleblower stories, tension comes from investigators trying to get a compromised witness to talk — here, once the tap is on, the informant simply won't shut up, digging deeper holes for everyone involved with each revelation or bizarre lie.

While "working undercover" — i.e. wearing a wire or arranging a camera as he sits in on matey meetings about international price-fixing — Whitacre takes the code-name 0014 because he thinks he's "twice as smart as James Bond". However, despite a running stream-of-consciousness voiceover that suggests he's genuinely convinced of his maverick heroism, he's actually a bipolar-suffering schmuck. To play Whitacre, Matt Damon goes all-out to change his look, adopting a paunch, nerd 'tache and elaborate hairdo.

However, the star isn't just physically disguised as he breaks brilliantly with anything he's done in his career to play a man who looks in the mirror and convinces himself that he sees Jason Bourne. Indeed, Whitacre wishes so hard that he were cool and honourable that it takes a while for others to wonder about his statements or tell-tale signs of his own dubious activity, like the sports cars in his garage, and discern the dangerously deluded character they're dealing with.

Soderbergh builds the film around the character and the performance, with a breezy Bond knock-off score from Marvin Hamlisch (of The Spy Who Loved Me fame) and a colourful, wry style. In fact, the film is almost too wound up in its lead's world, short-changing those around him.

Kim Newman