Published: September 23, 2009 09:31 pm      

‘The Informant!’ an instant classic

The hardest thing for an actor isn’t to play an extraordinary character. If your job is to be overtly crazy, angry, sad or any other dominant emotional state, you know exactly what you’re supposed to do, and when, and how. No, the hardest thing for an actor is to play an ordinary man, one that the audience has to like, understand, and wish to follow along with.

Mark Whitacre, the title character of “The Informant!” is just such a man. It doesn’t get more ordinary than a garden variety suit who works at a foodstuffs corporation in the Midwest. With his briefcase, thick glasses and well-kept mustache, Whitacre (played by Matt Da-mon, who put on a slight gut for the part), is as dull as they come, until the FBI comes calling and he turns government whistleblower.

In spite of his blandness, Whitacre has a good life. He’s one of the top executives at ADM, an Illinois company primarily concerned with food additives and products derived from corn. He’s got a pretty wife (Melanie Lynskey), three kids, a lovely house, several sweet cars, and he’s putting in some stables across the road.

But things aren’t going well at work. His boss (Tom Papa) is riding him hard to fix a virus that’s eating up all the Lysine in the corn products, a virus that’s costing the companies millions a month. After doing some sniffing, Whitacre believes he has uncovered a sabotage plot, and his bosses bring in the FBI. While they’re tapping his phone, Whitacre takes aside agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) to tell him he knows things – big, bad things – about his company. Specifically, that ADM is part of a global conspiracy concerning food companies all over the world fixing prices for maximum profit.

The bureau quickly jumps on the case, and Whitacre becomes fast friends with Agent Shepard and his partner Bob Herndon (Joel McHale) as he feeds them information from his company’s records and meetings. Years go by, and Whitacre keeps at it, even going so far as to wear a wire and sit in on meetings with a camera hidden in a lamp. As the investigation goes on, the plot thickens, and thickens and thickens some more into a sweet comedic elixir that you have to see to believe (which is why you shall hear no more of the plot from me).

What makes Damon’s performance truly remarkable is not just that he is so adept at playing an ordinary man, but that he is so adept at playing an ordinary man with extraordinary secrets. Whitacre represents the true cinematic puzzle, a man far deeper than even he knows he is, a trait Damon probes to the fullest. Throw in a series of brilliant non-sequitir internal monologues on everything from Nixon to South American butterflies, and you’ve got one of the most remarkable characters of the year.

While Damon is undeniably the star, the film also sports a wonderful supporting cast, led by Bakula and McHale (best known for his work on “The Soup”). Like Whitacre, everyone else in the film is almost painfully ordinary, yet they all manage to be extraordinarily entertaining, which, to me, is a mark of true talent.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that you have Steven Soderbergh, Hollywood’s greatest chameleon, at the helm as director. Soderbergh, best known for the “Ocean’s” series, tones down on the Hollywood polish to give the film an almost shockingly authentic look, from the fluorescent glare of Whitacre’s office to the orange halogen glow of a cheap motel room. As always, his camerawork and lighting are fanciful, even experimental, yet still always accessible, so much so that you tend to forget you’re watching a movie, which is always a good thing in my book.

In the end, you’ll end up liking “The Informant!” for the same reason you like it’s chief character: everything is more than it seems. The best movies, the ones that don’t come along very often, are the ones that aren’t predictable, the ones that don’t just move from plot point to plot point. They unfold like a beautifully wrapped present. Rejoice, moviegoers, this is the first great gift of the fall season.

Matt’s Call: It’s too early to tell if it’s Oscar time for this one. We’ve got a long fall ahead of us, but this is definitely worth your time. Don’t expect to laugh out loud, but definitely expect to leave with a smile on your face.