The Informant!

Welcome to another episode of the "D" List.

Today's review is The Informant!. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Written by Scott Z. Burns based on the book written by Kurt Eichenwald.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive."

I've always loved that phrase written by Sir Walter Scott for the text in his release of "MARMION" in 1808.

That combination of perfectly chosen words can apply to several areas of our society and in this case I am applying said phrase to Hollywood. Every so often a film comes along that is marketed as "The scariest film of all time!" or "So funny you'll be in tears!" You see the promos and your interest in instantly peaked. So you set up a date night, take your better half to a night of cinema bliss when out of nowhere...POW! You're hit with a bait and switch move. The movie you were so excited to see, the movie that had the clever and exciting trailers turned out to be NOTHING like you expected. What happens then? You leave the theater feeling 1 of 2 ways or sometimes both.

1) You feel a swell of disappointment.

2) You feel cheated.

This was how I felt coming out of The Informant!

The promos hailed this film as the funniest film of the year. You combine that hyperbole with the few clips of Matt Damon acting silly and you have completed your con of the movie going public.

Our story takes us to Decatur IL. Mark Whitacre played by Matt Damon is a bio chemist for Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) a food additive company. A situation surrounding a project that he's in charge of eventually leads to him becoming a whistle blower against his company for price fixing. This is how he becomes an FBI informant. The film continues further into the case and how Mark tries to stay cool while wired during meetings.

That's the basic plot. I can't tell you more because it will spoil what takes place next and that boys and girls is my problem with this film.

Certain events take place that take this film into a completely different direction and the entire time you're wondering why am I not laughing? That's because The Informant! is NOT A COMEDY! It's part comedy/drama/thriller. This film was so poorly marketed that it just destroys the viewing experience. You spend so much time searching for the jokes that aren't there that you end up missing elements of what is a very interesting plot. That's what pains me so much about this film. I got hooked on the funny trailers despite the "plant" quotes praising the film's comedic genius.

For those of you who don't know what a plant is allow me to explain.

A plant is someone from the studio that goes online and pretends to be someone who saw a "screening" of the film and will give it a glowing review. It's a shameless attempt to promote buzz for a film that they don't feel is strong enough to stand on it's own merit. Now geeks like me can see through that wave of B.S. so what they try now is slam certain parts of the film to give the impression that there were some issues but overall the movie was awesome. It never works but they still try.

Now if you seem confused reading this review then don't fret. I'm just as confused writing it. I sound like I hated this movie when I really did enjoy it. I just can't shake the fact that I went in expecting to laugh all afternoon and instead I got zip. On the plus side, as always Damon was spectacular. Once you see what lies beneath his character you can appreciate his performance so much more.

All told, The Informant! was not marketed properly to showcase what it actually is. Maybe they thought that nobody would go see it otherwise but in their attempt to steal your 10 bucks they are stealing more by robbing you of what could and should have been a fun time watching a very entertaining film.

So how do I score this one? Good question. Well I have decided for the 1st time in The "D" List history to give 2 scores.

On the 5 star scale. The Informant! gets 3 stars for the overall film but a 0 for it's comedy. As for recommendations I would go with a split between "Go See It/"Give It A Shot."

That's all for today.

Still on tap.....

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
The Invention of Lying

Until Next Episode...."I'll Save You A Seat!"

"D"