The Informant [2 Discs] [Blu-ray/DVD]

Director: Steven Soderbergh Steven Soderbergh

Overview

Matt Damon and Scott Bakula star in Steven Soderbergh's spy thriller The Informant, which tells the true story of a biochemist and an FBI agent who brought down a global price-fixing plan. Scott Burns adapts Kurt Eichenwald's book for Warner Independent Pictures.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/23/2010
UPC:	0883929037209
Original Release:	2009
Rating:	R
Source:	Warner Home Video
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:48:00
Sales rank:	29,349

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Matt Damon	Mark Whitacre
Scott Bakula	FBI Special Gent Brian Shepard
Joel McHale	FBI Special Agent Bob Herndon
Melanie Lynskey	Ginger Whitacre
Tony Hale	James Epstein
Scott Adsit	Sid Hulse
Lucas Carroll	Alexander Whitacre,Alexander Whitacre
Eddie Jemison	Kirk Schmidt
Rusty Schwimmer	Liz Taylor
Tom Papa	Mick Andreas
Rick Overton	Terry Wilson
Ann Dowd	FBI Special Agent Kate Medford
Allan Havey	FBI Special Agent Dean Paisley
Howie Johnson	Rusty Williams
Andrew Daly	Marty Allison
Hans Tester	Peter Dryer,Peter Dreyer
Ludger Pistor	Reinhard Richter
Rome Kanda	Hirokazu Ikeda
Yoshio Be	Kazutoshi Yamada
Raymond Ma	Kanji Mimoto
Hervé Deschamps	Philippe Rollier
Pascal Ifri	Alain Crouy
Ann Cusack	Robin Mann
Dann Seki	Joon Mo Suh
Jayden Lund	James Mutchnik
William Marsh	FBI Special Agent Ken Temples
Tom Smothers	Dwayne Andreas,Judge Harold Baker
Clancy Brown	Aubrey Daniel
Bob Zany	John Dowd
Richard Horvitz	Bob Zaiderman,Bob Zaideman
Patton Oswalt	Ed Herbst
Brian Gallivan	Ron Henkoff
Daniel Hagen	Scott Roberts
Samantha Albert	Mary Spearing
Jimmy Brogan	Dr. Derek Miller
Paul F. Tompkins	FBI Special Agent Anthony D'Angelo
Adam Paul	FBI Special Agent Michael Bassett
Wayne Péré	Sheldon Zenner
Joshua Funk	FBI Special Agent Robert Grant
Candy Clark	Mark Whitacre's Mother
Larry Clarke	Whitacre's Second Attorney
Chic Daniel	FBI Agent at Raid
Craig Ricci Shaynak	Actor
Thomas F. Wilson	Mark Cheviron
J.P. Gillain	Zurich Bank Security Officer
Jim Cummings	Mark Whitacre's Father
Tom Wilson	Mark Cheviron
Joseph Chrest	Visiting Client
Steve Seagren	Correctional Officer
Marvin Hamlisch	Composer

Technical Credits

Kurt Eichenwald

Scott Z. Burns

Steven Soderbergh	Director
Gregory Jacobs	Producer,Producer
Michael Jaffe	Producer
Howard Braunstein	Producer
Kurt Eichenwald	Producer,Screenwriter
Jennifer Fox	Producer
George Clooney	Executive Producer
Jeff Skoll	Executive Producer
Michael London	Executive Producer
Scott Z. Burns	Screenwriter
Carmen Cuba	Casting
Michael Polaire	Producer
Sean Byrne	Sound Effects
Matt Coby	Sound Effects
Larry Blake	Sound/Sound Designer
Dennis Towns	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

A majority of the humor in Steven Soderbergh's corporate espionage comedy The Informant! comes from watching the protagonist, the vice president of a prominent agricultural-industry giant, issue a series of internal non sequiturs while inadvertently gabbing his way right into his own grave -- and Matt Damon's mouth is a virtual earth excavator. Sporting a haircut that's spritzed to early-'90s perfection and neckties that look like a bad '80s hangover, his incessant, increasingly delusional ramblings provide the film with some of its most outlandishly funny moments. That is, of course, until his entire ruse begins to unravel and we're struck with the sudden realization that we've been laughing at a man with a serious mental illness. At that point, the comedy turns quasi-tragic. Then again, if the character doesn't take his condition seriously, why should we? Mark Whitacre (Damon) is a high-level executive at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), an agricultural company that uses corn to turn a tidy profit. But something fishy is going on behind the scenes at ADM, and it's beginning to draw the attention of Uncle Sam. Before long, Whitacre is bitten by the whistleblower bug, and decides to turn informant for the FBI. Though special agents Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Bob Herndon (Joel McHale) are elated to find an inside man who's willing to give up the goods on ADM, they quickly discover that they've gotten more than they bargained for when Whitacre develops an acute case of verbal diarrhea. Not only that, but the details seem to change every time Whitacre opens his mouth, placing his contacts in the Bureau in a rather precarious position and ensuring that he'll never realize his aspirations of running the company. Before long, Whitacre has become so enamored of his role as government informant that he can no longer sort fact from fiction in his own mind, and fails to realize that price fixing at ADM is the least of his worries. Reflecting back on Soderbergh's career, The Informant! can almost be taken as the comic inverse of Erin Brockovich; whereas the gorgeous crusader in that film successfully used her quick wit and good looks to take down a corporate monster, the rambling, bipolar knight erroneous here can't help but drop his sword on his foot every time he raises it. Alas, unlike the uncompromised Brockovich, Whitacre has been complicit in the wrongdoings of the company he now seeks to expose, only he's too lost in his own head to realize it. From Whitacre's distorted perspective, the FBI should hail him as a hero for his efforts in ripping the lid off of corporate malfeasance, but from an objective standpoint he's just as guilty as the rest of the well-dressed criminals he seeks to take down. As a result, our instinct is to laugh as the dirt begins to pile up around Whitacre's ankles, and screenwriter Scott Burns peppers his screenplay with enough hilarious moments to maintain our good will even when the story begins to drag on a bit longer than necessary. The same goes for Marvin Hamlisch's playful, upbeat score -- one of the most distinctive in some time, thanks to a retro-kitsch arrangement that evokes both James Bond and Austin Powers with its familiar spy guitar twang and creative use of kazoos. Hamlisch's idiosyncratic compositions make the occasional lag time between laughs breeze by, and provide the oddball protagonist with the perfect marching music. Still, the majority of credit for the film's overall success goes without question to Damon. The Informant! is the kind of film that could have easily faltered with a lesser actor in the lead, yet Damon's farcical tour de force of a performance is compulsively and consistently watchable thanks to the endearing nuance he brings to the role. His character is just so warped that it's impossible not to like him, even when you want to wring his neck for being such an insufferable dolt. Kudos also go out to casting director Carmen Cuba for assembling a fantastic team of supporting players to orbit around Damon's weirdo gravitational pull. Without them, the lead character's fascinating quirks wouldn't shine nearly as brightly as they do.