logo
VidMate
Free YouTube video & music downloader
Download
The Informant! (2009)

The Informant! (2009)

GENRESBiography,Comedy,Crime,Drama
LANGEnglish,German
ACTOR
Matt DamonTony HalePatton OswaltLucas McHugh Carroll
DIRECTOR
Steven Soderbergh

SYNOPSICS

The Informant! (2009) is a English,German movie. Steven Soderbergh has directed this movie. Matt Damon,Tony Hale,Patton Oswalt,Lucas McHugh Carroll are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2009. The Informant! (2009) is considered one of the best Biography,Comedy,Crime,Drama movie in India and around the world.

Mark Whitacre has worked for lysine developing company ADM for many years and has even found his way into upper management. But nothing has prepared him for the job he is about to undertake - being a spy for the FBI. Unwillingly pressured into working as an informant against the illegal price-fixing activities of his company, Whitacre gradually adopts the idea that he's a true secret agent. But as his incessant lies keep piling up, his world begins crashing down around him.

More

The Informant! (2009) Reviews

  • Entertaining and engaging comic version of a true story

    bob the moo2010-02-21

    Reading the opinions posted on this site it appears that a lot of viewers came to this film with the expectation of big laughs throughout and, when the film didn't delivered them, walked off in a huff moaning about the film failing to deliver. In fairness to them I suspect that their complaints may be valid based on trailers and marketing suggesting this would be the case – the exclamation point in the title probably didn't help either. So I'm glad then that I came to the film without a great deal of knowledge about what the film was trying to be other than it was a slightly comic version of a true case from the 1990's. I am glad because this is what the film is – a comic take on a real situation where the decision to do so as a light comedy appears to have paid off. With Mark Whitacre as the main character, we follow him into the case and we immediately start to get the impression that this guy really doesn't have his head in the real world – like he doesn't understand the consequences of anything he says and does, which perhaps accounts for his rather cheerful outlook and easy personality. This is true but the full extent of his actions are unveiled nicely across the whole film – leaving me at times a little like the FBI lawyer during the presentation from ADM's attorney, mouth open not quite believing it. It is not a hilarious movie by any means but the comic air makes it easy to enjoy and the story is engaging and entertaining. Soderbergh does slightly overdo the "wacky" feel to and he probably didn't need to have as many recognisable faces from comedy in small roles, but he does make it work. A big part of this reason is Matt Damon – showing that while he may be a Hollywood action star now, he is very capable as a character actor to. He does channel William H Macy from Fargo a little bit in how he will try and make pathetic lies to get himself out of trouble but I see this as a compliment because Macy is very good at that sort of character performance. Damon nails the cheerful self-delusion and his narration keeps us "on side" with him, making the comic tone work. The support cast is perhaps a bit too full of well-known faces but everyone is good, working again with the approach. Overall The Informant! appears to be disliked mainly by those who expected something that marketing led them to believe this was. Coming to it on its own terms however this is an engaging story told with a comic air that works and makes the film as entertaining as it is interesting. Not hilarious and one could question if it is fair to handle Whitacre's story in a light manner, but it does work and I enjoyed it for what it was.

    More
  • Price Fixing...and other stuff

    tiabuena-742-2596492010-05-21

    This will be short. I read the book when it first came out in 2000, and recently watched the film, and now am rereading the book. The book is dry and difficult, with three and half pages of involved people listed at the very beginning. Who can keep track of all this? It is replete with the taped conversations of the involved, all of the everything that went on. And, it is tedious, if correct, in the extreme. Well, what the film did, and bless it, was to simplify all of this stuff and make it intelligible to us ordinary folks. And, it made a really nasty story somewhat funny, because we know within the first half hour or so that there is something hinky about this Whitacre character. Oh boy, is there, but I won't write a spoiler here. There's no reason to. Even in the book, the FBI guys were wondering about Whitacre. Why did he turn traitor to his own company? What did he have to gain? The film is extremely well done, an amazingly good adaptation of a book which would probably have you snoozing after fifteen minutes. Matt Damon really shows his stuff in this one, even developing a modest middle age belly to complete the image of the nerdy scientist. Watch it, laugh at it, and remember: this is a true story about why most of the people in America are poor and how their losses are paying for the riches of companies which have decided that "the customer is the enemy".

    More
  • Calling Alec Guinness

    don-agustine2009-09-21

    Professionally executed, well, that's the least you can say about a Steven Soderbergh movie but, I felt, the whole thing had been done in a rush without real conviction, merely to showcase the talents of a friend, Matt Damon in this case. Terrific pace, involving and surprising. That's more I can say about most movies but The Informant with or without the exclamation mark left me kind of cold. I was far too aware of the intention. Matt Damon is a good actor but his acting is still too much of that, acting. I couldn't forget it was him, not for a moment. No matter how much extra pounds he had put on, the terrible hair do, the suits etc. It all felt like the dress rehearsal for something that wasn't quite there yet. I longed for Alec Guinness in that part. Visibly invisible. The story is so outrageous, with bumbling, sentimental FBI agents that couldn't see through this man until it was too late, is a pill hard to swallow and yet, we're told, the whole thing it's true. I suppose that the Marvin Hamlisch score was enough of a clue as to how to detect and read the tone of the movie but I was confused by it. I also must say I was never bored so, I guess that's a recommendation of sorts.

    More
  • Soderbergh's new film brings to life an (almost) unbelievably true story

    Reel_starz2009-09-20

    At its core, The Informant! is, by no means, an inherently funny story. It involves international corporate conspiracies, corruption, deception and betrayal. Yet somehow, Steven Soderbergh manages to turn Kurt Eichenwald's book, which depicts the true story of former ADM employee Mark Whitacre in the manner of John Grisham's best legal thrillers, into a thoroughly entertaining, often very funny movie. This, of course, is aided by Matt Damon's brilliant, spot-on portrayal of the corporate executive-turned-FBI informant, as well as solid work by the supporting cast. When I first read Eichenwald's book after learning about this movie, I was slightly skeptical. Economics and law are far from my forte. However, what I found was a story so ridiculous and told in such a compelling way that it was difficult to put the book down. Especially for a nonfiction story, the characters felt so well-developed and so three-dimensional that you cannot help but care immensely about them, despite their flaws. And then, I heard that Soderbergh planned to make the movie version into a dark comedy. Given some of the subject matter and material involved, I was worried that the film would turn into too much of a farce and would not give the real-life story and people the proper respect. To my utter relief, I was wrong. While some of the darker elements have been left out and the film is undoubtedly lighter than its source material, Soderbergh stayed true to reality, keeping the events mostly accurate to what Eichenwald described in his book, and hence, to what really happened; in fact, on a side note, after seeing the movie, the real-life Mark Whitacre commented that the film was "very accurate", which is a bit of a surprise considering Soderbergh made the decision to not consult any of the people involved in the actual 1990s investigation. Oddly enough, while this probably sounds contradictory to the opening statement of my review, much of the humor actually springs out of the events and dialogue depicted in the book, almost all of which took place in reality, rather than jokes or quips written by the screenwriter or improvised by the director or actors. There are so many hidden layers to the tale that, in retrospect, it is hard to not laugh or at least gap in wonder at how it all unfolded. Of course, that is not to say that Scott Z. Burns, who adapted Einchenwald's book for the screen, did not do any work. The screenplay does an admirable job of adhering to the true events with enough creativity, wit and originality to prevent the film from seeming like just a retread of everything Einchenwald accomplished in his narrative. Also impressive is the cast. Naturally, as Mark Whitacre, Matt Damon stands out. Even though he had not met the person he was portraying before filming, he perfectly captures Whitacre's personality, mannerisms and attitude, making him seem larger-than-life but at the same time, completely and utterly human, while many other actors might have made him too much of a caricature. The supporting cast does a fine job as well and perhaps the most noteworthy of these actors are Scott Bakula as the benignly professional FBI agent Brian Shepard and Melanie Lynskey, who portrays Whitacre's devoted wife, Ginger, with a sort of Mid-western bubbliness. In typical Steven Soderbergh mode, the director adds a quirky, unique tone to the movie. Although the whimsical, almost cartoonish score is sometimes a bit intrusive, this quaint style effectively mirrors the film's subtle and often ironic humor, and instead of being distracting, the cinematography, complete with the intense lighting and vibrant colors that make Soderbergh's films so distinctly his, helps emphasize the movie's off-beat wackiness. From the opening credits, viewers are immersed in the simple, charming vibe of small-town Illinois; this ambiance is benefited by the fact that Soderbergh chose to film in Decatur, the very town in which the real-life events occurred. Everything feels authentic, from the hairstyles to the ADM office and even the colorful array of ties sported by various cast members throughout the movie. Furthermore, by using voice-over narration, Soderbergh effectively manages to enter the mind of Mark Whitacre, who is, to say the least, an extremely fascinating personality. Partly thanks to Matt Damon's nuanced performance, the audience learns to sympathize with - if not root for - Mark, regardless of his moral ambiguity and questionable decisions. Perhaps, more than anything else, this is because the movie never makes fun of him, only at his nearly unbelievable situation. Not once is he made out to be a completely villainous guy or a complete hero; he is merely human.

    More
  • Subtle Da(e)mon

    kosmasp2010-06-11

    I think this might be Damons best performance since the Good Will Hunting movie. At least it felt to me like that. And I'm not saying that to put movies like Bourne or Oceans down, they are a lot of fun (on different levels), but performance wise he didn't have to stretch that many "muscles" (action wise on the other hand, he obviously had to, at least with the Bourne Trilogy). The story is pretty simple and the anti "Hero" is quite ordinary. Which might make it less appealing to a large audience, but it wasn't aimed to crack the box office. Soderbergh captures a weird feeling in this movie, that leaves you with a weird taste at the end. Of course, you could argue, that the movie shows too little of Damons wife, maybe even too little of his employer. But as it is, it's a pretty solid and greatly edited work. Even the voice over, which seems and is completely out of place, works really good in this movie. I guess even the Team America members would change their opinion of "Matt Damon" after watching this one. Give it a try, but don't expect laugh out loud comedy (not the ordinary kind that is).

    More

Hot Search