Release Date:  September 18, 2009
Rating:  R (for language)
Genre:  Comedy
Run Time:  108 min.
Director:  Steven Soderbergh
Actors:  Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Eddie Jemison, Melanie Lynskey, Tom Papa, Rusty Schwimmer, Scott Adsit, Thomas F. Wilson, Ann Dowd

As whistle-blower Mark Whitacre in The Informant!, Matt Damon is 30 pounds heavier than he was as Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity, so it's appropriate that The Informant! is a weightier film. But it ain't heavy.

Adapted by Scott Z. Burns, the same writer who helped to re-energize Damon's acting career by successfully adapting Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity for the big screen, The Informant! is about a serious subject—corporate and personal greed—but so filled with laugh-out-loud moments and an unexpected, offbeat comic spirit that the film's moral lesson is as surprising as it is damning.

Whitacre is a rising star at agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the 44th ranked company in the Fortune 500. When a secret leaks out about ADM's use of the additive lysine, Whitacre's co-worker fears the incident "might turn us into number 45." The FBI is called in, but Whitacre, instead of simply supplying the bureau with information to pursue a possible ADM mole, accuses ADM of price-fixing. The allegation launches a years-long investigation that leads to convictions against the firm, but which exposes Whitacre as well.

Whitacre's murky agenda in blowing the whistle on his company only gradually becomes clear, but it's apparent early on that something about Whitacre is amiss. Burns' clever script takes us inside Whitacre's mind, which is full of random thoughts and off-point observations about avocados, wool and retail sales. He agrees to wear a wire for the FBI and arrange meetings that are secretly filmed—but nearly gives the game away by staring at the hidden camera.

However, Whitacre is more than a mere space cadet. He's into full-blown fabrication, and his motives puzzle the FBI agents (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) assigned to work with him. Is he trying to impress a mistress? Is he a drug addict? And why does he keep talking about his future prospects with ADM even as he prepares to bring down the company?

The lessons of the film are obvious by the conclusion of the story, yet The Informant! never turns into a sermon. Despite the potential for heavy-handedness, the film has a jaunty spirit, due in part to an evocative Marvin Hamlisch score. The fun also comes in discovering, along with the FBI agents, that Whitacre is both dumb and also possibly "playing dumb"—he's both buffoon and cipher. Damon's terrific performance keeps us guessing about Whitacre and his motives through much of the movie. It doesn't matter that, for a time, the cops are played for fools. Eventually they figure out Whitacre's game and see to it that all guilty parties are punished.