You have to stick with The Informant! to appreciate it, an effort that is made especially difficult by the cruddy, digital cinematography (thanks to director Steven Soderbergh, once again shooting under the pseudonym Peter Andrews). But if you can get past that, you’ll witness a deceptively brilliant performance by Matt Damon, one that gets better as each of the many layers of the particularly pungent onion he plays is peeled away. Something stinks right from the start about Mark Whitacre (Damon), a high-level suit for agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland (the movie is based on an actual case). When he offers to help the FBI expose a price-fixing scheme within the industry, he seems to be the ideal insider for the good guys. But “seems” is the key word when it comes to Whitacre. Damon’s always been most interesting when playing an impenetrable enigma – The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Bourne Identity, The Good Shepherd – and his Mark Whitacre is his most confounding human conundrum. He fools everyone, even – in the movie’s final, most frightening scenes – himself.
