Roger Ebert gives The Informant! four stars, writing:
‚ÄúThe Informant!‚Äù is fascinating in the way it reveals two levels of events, not always visible to each other or to the audience. A second viewing would be rewarding, knowing what we find out. Matt Damon’s performance is deceptively bland. Whitacre comes from a world of true-blue Downstate people, without affectations, surrounded by some of the richest farmland in the world. His determination to wear the wire leads to situations where discovery seems inevitable, but he’s seemingly so feckless that suspicion seems misplaced. What he’s up to, is in some ways, so very simple. Even if it has the FBI guys banging their heads against the wall.
Mark Whitacre, released a little early after FBI agents called him ‚Äúan American hero,‚Äù is now an executive in a high-tech start-up in California and still married to Ginger. Looking back on his adventure, he recently told his hometown paper, the Decatur Herald and Review, ‚ÄúIt’s like I was two people. I assume that’s why they chose Matt Damon for the movie, because he plays those roles that have such psychological intensity. In the ‚ÄòBourne’ movies, he doesn’t even know who he is.‚Äù
And it is a NY Times Critic’s Pick. Manohla Dargis:
It’s the cost of that dream that Mr. Soderbergh takes stock of in this smart, cynical movie about how we buy now — oops, I mean, how we live now. Money makes the world go ’round in “The Informant!,” much as it does everywhere and much as it most certainly does in his previous movie, “The Girlfriend Experience,” about a young prostitute selling her waxed wares. This time, though, Mr. Soderbergh has trained his focus and expertly wielded digital camera on the other side of the buy-and-sell equation, on the men in suits who fly in corporate planes, nursing drinks while they chortle about the breasts of their female employees. These are masters of our universe, the big little men who control and distort world markets.
And of Damon and the writing:
In time the agents sour on their cooperating witness, a grudging metamorphosis that parallels your own. Mr. Damon’s inherent likeability makes him something of a Trojan horse here, not only because he’s a star (and therefore beloved by definition), but also because he’s so boyish no matter the part. That’s true even in “The Informant!,” though he’s been gleefully uglied up for the role with a fake bulbous nose and real pudge. Mr. Damon’s physical choices tell you a lot about the character long before the truth seeps out. As does Mark’s tendency to drift into banalities in the voice-over — he natters on about ties, polar bears and butterflies while the scandal unfolds — a brilliant screenwriting device that hints at an inner duality.
However, this film has critics all over the map, like many of Soderbergh’s films of late. There is a lot to admire in someone who really doesn’t appear to care whether or not people like what he’s doing – for better or worse, Soderbergh is an artist and he will sometimes pay the price for that in a town built more for entertainment. And Soderbergh’s stuff can be hit and miss. Kenneth Turan’s pan after the cut.
Like these, “The Informant!” was made by Soderbergh largely to amuse himself. He read a story about a real-life corporate whistle-blower and decided, for reasons only he knows, that it had the makings of a wacky comedy starring an overweight Matt Damon. The result, not unlike those sounds only dogs can hear, is not the most promising way to involve people outside the director’s inner circle.
Ouch.
