The Informant!

I’ve had it with the films of Stephen Soderbergh. They seem so affected, so aware of their own cleverness. THE INFORMANT!, for example, glides along on this bouncy muzak that makes me feel like the film thinks it’s smarter than the people in it. Since the people in it made suckers out of us, we don’t have to work too hard to close that circle.

THE INFORMANT! tells the quasi-true story of Mark Whitacre, played by Matt Damon as some sort of goofball moron genius. The film adapts Whitacker’s book about his time as an FBI informant, helping the Bureau build a price-fixing case against agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland while simultaneously embezzling millions and millions of dollars from his employer.

I think it’s going for archly humorous, but it simply comes off as arch. Eventually, it got under my skin, giving me the kind of uncomfortable feeling I associate with observing one person belittle another. Consequently, I distanced myself from the film and merely waited for it to end.

After the disappointments of BUBBLE, OCEAN’S THIRTEEN, and THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, I'm done with this filmmaker. I just don’t see what he brings to the table.