MESSAGE IN THE MOVIES

The Informants! Rated R

Directed by Steven Soderbergh.  Starring Matt Damon, Scott Bakula.


Photo © Warner Brothers
Movie Review by Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

When a person discovers corruption in the workplace, should they report it to higher authorities? 

The Christian response to this question is an unqualified “yes”, but the reality about whistle-blowing seems to be this: Everyone respects the person with the moral integrity to uncover sin, but few people want to be the person who does so, for we live in a world of power that will force the honest person to pay a terrible price.

Ridley Scott’s 1999 film The Insider was a straight-faced and deadly serious fact-based story about Jeffrey Wigand’s battle to share with the world the sins of Big Tobacco companies and the harmful additives they were putting into cigarettes. 

The Informant! is a light-hearted and whimsical treatment about how Mark Whitacre, (Damon) a high-level executive at Archer Daniels Midland, worked with the FBI to bring down a global price-fixing system of corn derivatives.  What makes this story so interesting is the character of Mark Whitacre himself, and his inability to see his complicity in the things that he is helping the FBI to uncover.  It’s a fascinating story, and Matt Damon is wonderful as Whitacre, assisted by an able and talented cast. 

It’s unfortunate that director Soderbergh decided to make a film that resembles a 70s caper picture, with a zany and distracting score by Marvin Hamlisch (that wants to announce every crazy idea with kazoos and horns), psychedelic typefaces, and orange color schemes. 

The actual events took place in the 1990s (remember Enron?) and the topic of corn derivatives is as current as today.  It took me almost half of the film to set these distractions aside. 

After that, I must admit that I found the film to be quite entertaining and thought provoking.  But idea-based films are not good box office, so concessions must be made.  I am afraid that these sell-outs to “popular taste” have weakened what could have been an even better film.  But I must admit, I cannot think of another movie that arrives  on screen already “dated”. 

See it quick, while you can still remember “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In”.

Pitchfork Rating:
Three halos. (An interesting fact-based story about power, corruption, and delusion that’s perhaps a bit wackier than it needs to be.)
Two picthforks. (For acts of deceit and blackmail, and a good amount of swearing.)

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