image from screenrant.com
So, ladies and gents, welcome to the first “official” 6NBlog movie review. As you may recall, we posted a quick rant on the crappy Extract (it was more about the theater), but consider this one our official debut. Our rating scale is based on that of IMDb.com, meaning that anything from a 7.5 and above is probably worth the price of admission, with an 8.0 being a must-see, and 8.4 and above being pretty much a 6NBlog instant classic.
Tonight, we had the pleasure of seeing Steven Soderbergh’s (the director of Ocean’s 11, 12, and 13) new flick, The Informant! and while we were slightly confused by the proceedings at times, we were ultimately entertained.
Mark Whitacre (Maaatt Daaaamon, in a very funny performance) is a mild-mannered executive at farming/agricultural giant ADM, who earns $350K a year, has a beautiful family, and a nice house in suburban IL. Within the company he’s potentially the next big thing, having risen up the ladder quickly after graduating with a phD from Cornell in bio-science. But when Whitacre unexpectedly blows the whistle to the FBI on a price-fixing scheme that ADM conjured up with farming manufacturers across the globe to set the market for lysene (a food additive that’s in a lot of everyday products), a long, twisted and tangled web of lies and deceit begins to unravel regarding Whitacre, company executives in the scheme, and the FBI. By the end of the flick there’s lawyers and people going to jail, plus a couple of twists and turns you didn’t see coming along the way. It’s long and complicated and we really can’t give much else away; you have to interpret it for yourself.
Damon is effective in this black comedy/corporate thriller that calls to mind films like The Firm (which actually plays a role in the movie) and The Insider, and maybe even with a little of the Coen Bros.’ Burn After Reading sprinkled in for good measure.
While he’s not usually known for his comedic chops (Ocean’s movies aside), Damon is obviously challenged by Soderbergh in the role and really pulls it off. The supporting cast is solid, including Scott Bakula and E’s/Community‘s Joel McHale as a pair of FBI agents who are guiding Whitacre through the process, Melanie Lynskey as his wife Ginger, and an extended cameos by character actors Thomas F. Wilson (Back to the Future’s Biff Tannen) as another ADM executive, Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption) as a lawyer, and Patton Oswalt (Big Fan) as a government bigwig.
You’ll walk out of the theater questioning what it was exactly you just saw, but you’ll have an enjoyable experience nonetheless. Soderbergh’s dealt with complicated plot lines before with the Ocean’s series, and he has no problem keeping the audience interested and not feeling out of the loop with a mixture of clever comedic scenes along with Damon providing some very funny inner-monologues as the film’s narrator. The trailer would make you think that Whitacre’s an idiot, but after you see his story unfold you will wonder if he actually was the smartest man in the board room all along.
RATING: 7.6/10
Here’s the trailer:
