 |
|
Where
does he really stand? (l-r) Melanie Lynskey and Damon
in The Informant!
|
There
Was a Crooked Man
By
Laura Leon
The
Informant!
Directed
by Steven Soderbergh
Far
less grave than Michael Mann’s The Insider, Steven
Soderbergh’s The Informant! is a roller-coaster ride
through the inner workings of an FBI investigation and, more
importantly, the mind of a seemingly straight-A poindexter.
Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) is young, paunchy and on the fast
track; the president of the bioproducts division of Archer
Daniels Midland, he’s obsessed with how corn products fuel
the economy, and doesn’t mind one bit boring his son to tears
about it. But Mark’s got a problem. Seems that ADM is involved
in a price-fixing scheme over its superstar amino acid, lysine,
and when sales projections begin to falter (due to a lysine
virus), Mark’s dudgeon takes a decidedly personal turn. Claiming
that he was contacted by an associate who promises to cure
the virus in exchange for big bucks, Mark draws the attention
of the FBI and Justice Department, which begins a tumultuous
multiyear partnership. Whitacre agrees to wear a wire in order
to gain the kind of hard evidence that will prove the case.
Herein lies the great farcical beauty of The Informant!:
We watch Mark, face buried in the hidden mic in his lapel,
explain his entrance into headquarters, or fiddle quite obviously
with his tape recorder in the middle of an ADM meeting. His
FBI handlers (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) watch, horrified,
from a remote location as their mole repeatedly does things
that could jeopardize the whole operation, but agree that
for all his bumbling, he’s achieving results.
Throughout, however, one can’t shake the feeling that Whitacre
isn’t really all there; that something’s up. Perhaps it’s
the way he keeps up the verbal attacks on the two men who
were his immediate supervisors, and who had questioned his
ability when the lysine virus was wreaking havoc on the financials.
Or how he asks the FBI agents for assurance that, once this
is all over, he’ll still be “all right with the company.”
Whitacre displays the jaunty joviality of the Midwesterner,
as well as a stereotypical lack of intellectual verve. He’d
be right at home in one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s early stories,
except he’s so decidedly a creature of our own times.
Toward the end of the movie, when the FBI and government officials
realize that their big case isn’t what they thought it was,
the viewer keeps hoping that the next revelation will show
all. But whenever Whitacre—who is obsessed with Tom Cruise
and The Firm—insists that he’s telling the whole story,
another shoe drops. In some ways, The Informant! is
maddening, as Whitacre is incapable of the truth, or following
simple instructions.
This is Damon’s film, and not just because almost everybody
else in the movie is relatively unknown outside stand-up comedy.
He relishes the chance to play someone for whom amiability
is part and parcel of a particular psychosis. Damon is playing
with our longstanding impression of him as a really nice guy,
but the performance is worlds away from the sinister underpinnings
of The Talented Mr. Ripley.
We see people like Whitacre every day on the news, and we
always ask, how did he think he could get away with it? Was
he that stupid? The fact that we, in watching The Informant!,
continually seek to sort out what makes Whitacre tick, or
to find the one thing that makes sense of it all, proves that
we’re just as susceptible to being hornswoggled as the next
guy.
The
Devil in Miss Fox
Jennifer’s
Body
Directed
by Karyn Kusama
Jennifer’s
Body, a teen-scream flick about an imperious high-school
temptress, can be viewed as a satirical antidote to Twilight’s
gauzy romanticism. Here, Jennifer (Megan Fox) has an occult
encounter that lampoons the dangers of unprotected female
lust. After a night out at the local roadhouse to watch an
out-of-town band with her BFF, Needy (Amanda Seyfried), Jennifer
is abducted for a virgin sacrifice. But since casual sex is
her favorite extracurricular activity, she survives the knifing
and is resurrected as an imperious demoness. And that’s just
one of the witty contradictions in Diablo Cody’s teen-trendy
script that equates the socio-sexual anxieties of adolescence
with flesh eating. By way of seducing her victims, Jennifer
tongue-twists their deepest insecurities and then disgusts
them with graphic descriptions of carnal violence (it’s the
boys here who make stupid sorority-girl moves such as walking
into an abandoned house in the middle of the night).
Jennifer torments her more intelligent friend by tantalizing
her with her depraved activities, and then arguing that Needy
is insane. This element of suspense—is Needy hallucinating
or speaking the truth about the unspeakable?—is hoary rather
than horrifying, but it allows the girls to have creepy conversations
that satirize the usual best-friend jealousies and in-crowd
infighting. Cody won an Oscar for her screenplay for Juno,
and while no one from this crew should expect a nomination
(though Seyfried is practically Oscar caliber), the skin-
crawling dialogue gets under the skin of an oppressive friendship.
“Jennifer is evil!” confesses Amanda to her adoring and wholesome
guy pal, Chip (Johnny Simmons). “Not high-school evil, evil
evil!”
Also compensating for the lack of a scary plot is a clever
running joke about the indie band, who turn to Satanism instead
of a gig on Letterman to get radio play. The band’s lead singer
is impersonated with insouciance by the O.C.’s Adam
Brody, and though the film’s hotness quotient is trotted out
a little too often (“I’m scrumptious,” says Jennifer, in an
understatement), the teenage girls who will most appreciate
this film can at least enjoy actors who are considerably “saltier”
(and more talented) than those in run-of-the-mall slasher
flicks.
—Ann
Morrow
|
Site
Search 
