The Informant!
The only other project that Steven Soderbergh has had any directorial control over and released this year was The Girlfriend Experience, a largely lambasted film that had critics asking just what the hell he was playing at.
Picking a hardcore pornstar for a leading role? What was he thinking? Having seen the film at the time, it was no turkey, even given the obvious limitations of it's performers, most notably the aforementioned Sasha Grey.
Not an opinion that was held by many critics. Perhaps they should have tried watching it before casting their critical glare on it.
And now for what Steven/George/Matt did next. 'The Informant' is adapted from a true story written by journalist Kurt Eichenwald of the same name in 2000, about Mark Whitacre, the highest ranking executive whistleblower in US history. Soderbergh directs, whilst Clooney exec produces and Damon stars as Whitacre, who is as far removed from any character Damon has played before that I can remember.
It's safe to say that this is not your usual bout of entertainment in the same way that Whitacre was not the usual kind of criminal. The film weighs in at about an hour and three quarters, which is ample time to get to know Whitacre and his wife Ginger, played largely dutifully, if not completely convincingly by Melanie Lynskey, though this may be due to the material afforded to her which is, at best, slight.
Soderbergh does not know how to do hurried, so this is no great shocker, but at times the film truly feels laboured, straining at the patience of the viewer, particularly in a difficult, ramshackled second act. We are left confounded as the story jumps from lawsuit to lawyer, one FBI agent to another, back to the lawyers via one office desk or another. The reveal comes too late to have time to impress it's audience, a large proportion of which have by then stopped caring about the outcome or the future for a main character that held us transfixed for almost all of the first hour.
Damon plays the bi-polared Whitacre for all he's worth however and is convincing enough for us to ask if this alleged true story could ever really have happened the way that the story would have us believe, so comedic are some of the turns and twists This admittedly enjoyable decision to play to the funny side of the story may certainly have entertained but subsequebntly undermined it to a certain extent also.
This made it all the more difficult to take Whiteacre's character seriously, making his story and the implementation of a credible lead less achievable. Still. to take nothing away from the whole, the film does indeed entertain, even if it does go about with a suitable sense of self-loathing and innate understanding that it is the butt of it's own joke.
Simply, not as clever as it would like to think it is, nor nearly classy enough to make up for it's comedic shortcomings. Nonetheless, enjoyable for the most part, if needlessly flawed, given the undeniable talent involved.
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