The Informant! is a comedy directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, an executive for a food company who comes forward to the FBI about his company price fixing a food additive in virtually everything called lysene.  These are the same people who pretty much put high fructose corn syrup in everything.  It’s based on a book of the same name (also available through Audible: ) that is actually a true story written by Kurt Eichenwald.

I really did not know what to expect from this.  I went in knowing pretty much nothing.  The advertising was horrible.  I mean look at that poster above.  It gives you no clue of what this movie is about.  The commercials were similarly vague and only hinted that it was funny.  The idea that I formed for myself would be that it’d be like a sort of funny version of The Insider.  It really wasn’t though.  The narrative is mostly driven by a voice over delivered by Damon’s character.  This voice over is probably the best part of the movie.  It is extremely funny.  They mostly have nothing to do with what is going on and just give you an inside line into the character of Whitacre’s brain on some level.  Here’s an example:

When polar bears hunt, they crouch down by a hole in the ice and wait for a seal to pop up. They keep one paw over their nose so that they blend in, because they’ve got those black noses. They’d blend in perfectly if not for the nose. So the question is, how do they know their noses are black? From looking at other polar bears? Do they see their reflections in the water and think, “I’d be invisible if not for that.” That seems like a lot of thinking for a bear.

That is just there.  No context at all.  Anyway the film starts off pretty straightforward and then starts throwing twists everywhere.  I really would spoil the movie if I talk about it but let’s just say there’s a lot more going on then you’ll initially think.  It does actually get sort of sad for a brief period but this is definitely a comedy.  I cannot believe Matt Damon was nominated for an Oscar for his horrible performance in Invictus over this.  He really takes this role and runs with it.  A great stand out performance.  The rest of the cast is also great featuring wonderful performances by people like Scott Bakula and Joel McHale, even Tony Hale of Arrested Development fame.  But despite a few things this isn’t a big broad comedy and instead finds its humor and big laughs in really subtle things, like the voiceover, throwaway lines, and little bits of actions.

This is a pretty meticulously crafted gem and I love what screenplay writer Scott Z. Burns and Steven Soderbergh did here.  I also love the cinematography and set design meant to portray from 1992 up to a few years ago and how it actually is quite representative of the time without being “Hey this is the 90′s! Remember grunge? How about the first George Bush?”

I really recommend this one.  It comes out on February 23rd on DVD and Blu-ray.  I’d recommend the Blu-ray as it appears to be a dvd/blu-ray combo pack according to some sources and that way even if you don’t have a blu-ray player now, if you upgrade you’ll already own this.  Also Amazon has a preorder deal where if you buy it now you can watch it via their video on demand service the day it comes out, so you can watch it while it’s in the mail.

Of course it’s also available via Amazon on regular DVD and VOD

It’s also available through the Warner Bros Online shop: and on