FILMS

Lies destroy man’s life in ‘The Informant!’

Reviewed by Rebecca Bostic | Oct. 1, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

“The Informant!” is a catchy and appropriate title for Matt Damon’s latest collaboration with director Steven Soderbergh.

Damon plays biochemist-businessman-turned-FBI informant Mark Whitacre, who divulges details about price fixing in the 1990s corn industry. But that’s not the only subject the witty film takes on — it also looks into the nature of lying and the way it grows slowly but steadily in one’s life.

Soderbergh initially presents the less-than-forthcoming Whitacre, a heftier and toupee-wearing Damon, in a playful manner. Yet as the film moves toward its finale, what started as a small series of lies grows into a force that destroys Whitacre’s life.

Whitacre is a vice president at a major corn distribution company. He tells the FBI about his company’s involvement in price fixing lysine, a bacteria used in the production of corn-based products. He works with the FBI for more than two and a half years — wearing a wire, holding meetings under video surveillance — before the FBI raids the company, with hopes of taking the executives to trial.

As the trial begins, the audience learns that Whitacre is not the simple man he has portrayed himself as to be to the FBI, his family and his company. What begins as a few small lies about relatively unimportant matters grows into a culture and habit of deceit.

This habit overtakes Whitacre’s seemingly genuine desire to be a good man with high moral standards. While trying to preserve his high standard of living — we’re talking about eight-cars-in-the-garage kind of living — he loses sight of what is right.

Sin “wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity,” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Whitacre’s attachment to his material lifestyle blinds him to the sin he is committing. The sin festers and multiplies and overtakes his life.

When the light of truth reveals his lies, the life he’d built for himself is destroyed.

Damon portrays the complicated Whitacre masterfully. Whitacre’s bipolar disorder is demonstrated through voiceover thoughts perfectly matched by Damon’s facial reactions.

His performance brings the audience along for the rise and fall of a man, keeping everyone in the dark until the end of the film. Damon’s best performance yet is intelligent, extremely entertaining and thoughtful. It deserves the critical acclaim it is receiving.

That said, there are times when the plot gets a bit convoluted.  It drags for a moment here and there, but not enough to distract from the film’s successful elements.

The amazing part of the film is that the sharp turn from comedy to tragedy is so smoothly executed. Like vice, it’s hard to pinpoint the moment the change occurs.

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Media critic Rebecca Bostic is a regular contributor to The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to letters@catholicsun.org.