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Starring Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre - a whistler blower within the lysine price-fixing conspiracy
of the mid 1990's - The Informant! is loosely based on a true story, and features a very
large supporting cast of mostly TV regulars like Scott Bakula, Joe McHale, Scott Adsist,
Patton Oswalt, and even Thomas F. Wilson - the actor who played Biff in BTTF. The film is
sharply written, and moves along at a blisteringly, sometime confusing pace as we follow the inner
monologue of habitual liar and middle-man, Whitacre at a lysine manufacturing company,
ADM. While the plot here is based on a true story, it certainly offers very little cohesion
for the viewing audience... as the developments from scene to scene routinely fail to compound
on one another, with many pieces of dialogue in the film playing out like un-funny SNL
skits, rather than something in a professionally released movie that ought to be progressing
the plot forward. There are interesting characters here, and a plot to follow - but unfortunately
for us, the Whitacre character is just so haphazard in his motives that it's very difficult
to figure out if he's telling the truth, or if he's even the good guy in this film. For
a movie that is billed as a "Dark Comedy", The Informant! is by all accounts - neither.
Although the dialogue is well-written and acted, this movie is nothing more than a quirky
two-hour office drama that confuses the viewer, and fails to reach a satisfactory conclusion
with it's characters. There was nothing "dark" about the material, and certainly not a single
moment that even resembled funny comedy. The Informant! finishes with a definite conclusion,
but it feels very slow getting there, and when the credits roll - you wonder if any
of the character learned anything from their mistakes and exploits. I suppose if you're
massively curious about the lysine pricing fixing scandal of 1995, this might be a fun
film for you, but sadly - it failed to really spark my interest. Well, that's what I had
to say about The Informant! - now lets see what you had to say in the YouTube comments.
Alright, now that we've both voiced our opinions - lets see how The Informant! ranked on the
Rate-O-Matic... A four and a five! There were parts of this film I enjoyed, the quirky style,
the dialogue - and Matt Damon were all terrific... but sadly the character motives were far too
confusing at times for me to really be interested in this film. I score it a "Meh". Collectively,
you guys ranked it an "Alright", many of you citing similar reasons for disliking the film,
but few were able to provide strong reasons as to why the film was bad... landing it square
in the middle here.