Reviews
Ever dreamed of being James Bond? If you’re a boy, of course you have! And if all the ladies simply imagine themselves being Carrie Bradshaw, you’ll come close. The Guns, the Gadgets, the Girls. Alliteration aside, the double agent is a cool career path. You know what isn’t a cool career path? Bio-Chemist. Sure I find Bio-Chemistry itself as interesting as the next guy (unless he’s a young, adventurous Bio-Chemist upstart!). Adding a blue liquid to a red liquid and seeing if you’ve got a cure for cancer or just another pour l’homme £56.59 30cl bottle of piss water. But the actual Bio-Chemists themselves? Well they’re not kite surfing down an avalanche on a Russian mobster’s dead body, powered by a ripped parachute, whilst disarming a bomb in the shape of a toaster are they?
Mark Whitacre certainly wasn’t - at least if the portrayal of him in this film adaptation of Kurt Eichenwald’s 2000 work of non-fiction is to be believed. The differences between Whitacre and Bond are made all the more entertainingly vast as the real-life character is played by Matt Damon, a man part of a trio (along with Paul Greengrass and Doug Liman [in my opinion]) responsible for turning Jason Bourne into a cooler, more likeable, more credible, and generally more entertaining character than Bond himself.
But as this film shows us, Mark Whitacre, CEO of lysine production company ADM, was not at all happy with simply not being James Bond. When it came to the punch, he wasn’t even happy being similar to James Bond, showing people his spy stuff and boasting he was agent 0014 – ‘Because he’s twice as smart as 007’.
Mark is encouraged by his wife to turn informant on the illegal practice of price-fixing by ADM and other international Bio-Chemical conglomerates. Any more info would be subject to a large ‘SPOILER’ stamp across the page… by the way ‘THIS IS NOT A SPOILER’, just in case that’s all you read upon first sight.
I haven’t read the original book, however I can’t help thinking that it would have been an interesting read, but would have made a truly shit and boring film. Therefore it’s a real credit to Damon and Director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, Traffic, Ché & t’other week’s The Girlfriend Experience) they’ve managed to find so much humour and potential for a cinematic story in the subject material, which let’s face it can be a tad limited in this true story genre.
The whole thing is narrated by Whitacre’s inner monologue as he often ‘zones out’ during important situations and starts telling you about tie fashion, and the importance of corn. These moments are (believe me), hilarious, as Damon offers the perfectly mixed measurements of timing and subtlety to create a mysterious, unpredictable, yet likeable character.
The Informant! - Brought to you by James Wormald -