The Informant

RATING: ****

Early on,while Mark Whitacre (Damon) is spinning a story involving phones,lysine,viruses,corn and bacon — all of it linked to what the world has for breakfast — you know something is wrong. The tales are too glib,the solutions too fast and Whitacre just too perfect.

The FBI,of course,sees none of this as Whitacre lets them in on the lysine industry’s price-fixing racket and then immediately tries to backtrack. As he is convinced into turning an informant for them,wearing wires to company meetings as one of its youngest vice-presidents,Whitacre enjoys himself more and more. Even that doesn’t ring alarm bells nor does his expensive lifestyle,including a fleet of big cars and a stable for horses.

At one point he shows the odds-job man at his house the briefcase that is wired and calls himself 0014. Why? “I am twice as smart as 007,” he says.

Based on Kurt Eichewald’s book on a real FBI informant who helped catch the lysine industry’s corporate fraud,the story obviously is true. Soderbergh takes it one step further by interlacing it with humour,perhaps the only way to tackle the incestuous world of high business where almost everything is acceptable as long as it is under the table.

However,Soderbergh doesn’t let it be,adding some of his own smarts to Whitacre’s unending ingenuity. The monologue that Damon keeps up,for example,is funny at first but jars later. It is meant to hint at but,deliberately,doesn’t fit in with the context. It is perhaps an indication of the state of Whitacre’s mind,but often you can’t help feeling left out of a running in-house joke. In the process,the plot drags in the middle.

This is an out-and-out Damon film and he literally fills out the role,putting on weight,changing his gait,dressing up drably,to become almost unidentifiable. It’s easy to see he could really believe in his own myths. And this is clearly Whitacre’s film,an incredible story about an incredible man.

It didn’t have to be as much about Soderbergh.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com