The film revolves around the task of the US government to pursue the agribusiness giant on charges of fixing prices. Based on the evidence presented by the vice president, who became the Mark Whitaker detective, the government moved to stop this. The film is based on the true story of the highest degree of whistleblower reporting.
The Informant! is an inspired social satire, a near-perfect single-carat diamond in an age of mindless movie bling. It's a small movie, but not in any sense minor.
It may come across like a self-satisfied madcap bauble, but that titular exclamation mark is the key that unlocks the myriad subtextual delights of Soderbergh's timely latest.
Drills away into the dark humor of a white-collar tattletale, his ever-widening web of deceit and a scrambled criminal mind with a couple of screws loose.
Soderbergh has transformed this into a treatise on the incompetence of everyone involved: the informant, the corporation upon which he informs, the lawyers, and the FBI. Strangely enough, it's completely believable.
Soderbergh is a good listener, too, always alert to the myriad ways his characters reveal, conceal and finally betray themselves in thought, word and deed.
Slate
September 19, 2009
Mark's collection of bizarre behaviors doesn't add up to a character.
As the story becomes more about the various undercover ops and the contradictory workings of Whitacre's hateful-lovable mind, The Informant! has an undeniable crackle.
