Brain twister

The Informant! is an enjoyably unpredictable
pastiche from Steven Soderbergh

MIDWESTERN FRONT: Matt Damon

by MALCOLM FRASER

Ever the tireless journeyman auteur, Steven Soderbergh comes back at us with another strange pastiche; The Informant! mixes the kitchen-sink realism of the Che movies with the kitschy fun of the Ocean’s flicks. Matt Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, a Midwestern agribusiness executive who starts to detect fishy business in his company’s international dealings.

When he becomes an informant for the FBI, the film turns into a sort of corporate espionage flick with an unlikely protagonist—Whitacre seems like a smart but socially clueless eccentric, recalling both William H. Macy in Fargo and The Simpsons’ Ned Flanders. But a good ways into the film, the story takes a twist, which I won’t spoil except to say that it’s unexpected and darkly funny, and turns the story into a series of escalating surprises.

Soderbergh makes a number of odd choices that keep the film’s tone consistently, if deliberately, off-balance. Chief among these is Marvin Hamlisch’s kitsch-lounge score, which seems perversely inappropriate pretty much all the way through. Mixed with the frequent use of titles in ’70s-psychedelic fonts, the early-’80s décor, and the Mad Men-era wardrobe and hairstyles of Whitacre’s wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey), it all adds up to a feeling of cultural and temporal dislocation (the film is set in the late ’90s). Working as his own pseudonymous cinematographer as usual, Soderbergh engages in some peculiar tricks of lighting, colour, framing and blocking that teeter on the verge of not working, but never quite topple over.

Just to throw us off a little further, the cast is stacked with comedians, from Patton Oswalt to the Smothers Brothers, even though the film isn’t a comedy per se. My heart broke for Tony Hale (immortalized as Arrested Development’s Buster) when his mere appearance onscreen was greeted with gales of laughter before he could dive into his entirely dramatic role.

But despite its highly irregular tone, the film is enjoyable and unpredictable, and features a great performance from Damon (who disappears into the role with packed-on pounds and a terrible moustache). Soderbergh seems to be enjoying his status of doing whatever the hell he wants and seeing how much he can get away with in a mainstream film context, so really, more power to him.

THE INFORMANT! OPENS
THIS FRIDAY, SEPT. 18