The Informant Review: Would you hire The Informant? - Movie Reviews, Film Reviews, Movies, Films, Entertainment, Film Entertainment, TV, Television, TV Reviews, Television Reviews

Back in 2009, one of the first films that I went to see at the Toronto International Film Festival was The Informant, starring Matt Damon and Scott Bakula. I had never really checked out a film festival before and so the experience itself was rather strange. It’s interesting then that one of my first films at the festival was a pretty strange film itself. First and foremost is the fact that Matt Damon almost disappears into the role of Mark Whitacre as a bio-chemist at a middle-American corn producer known as ADM.

There are a number of actors who can’t really move beyond their fame. Actors like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Robert DeNiro and Woody Harrelson are the kind of actors who I can only ever see as the actors they are and not the roles that they play. There are exceptions to that rule, for instance, Woody Harrelson in ‘Defendor’, Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in ‘Fight Club’, and George Clooney as Everett McGill in ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ Matt Damon on the other hand can sometimes be a bit of a wild card in the roles that he takes. Roles like ‘Dogma’ or ‘Ocean’s 11’, while incredible, are roles in which he seems to have been cast for the fact of his status as an actor whereas a role like Jason Bourne or Will Hunting, he finds a way to disappear into the role he is playing and you almost forget who he is.

I would put ‘The informant’ in the category of one where he disappears, the subtle way in which he portrays a nervous yet simple man who believes in doing the right thing despite his co-workers views of things and business practices is nothing short of brilliant. But the portrayal is not the only good thing about the film. As the story progresses, you start to realize that things are not entirely what they seem in the world Mark Whitacre inhabits. This begins a series of twists and turns to the plot that would normally be seen in a crime drama or a political thriller but feels right at home in this rather strange and quiet comedy.

Perhaps it’s the fact that so many of the characters seem genuine and honest in the way they deal with the situation at hand, the question of price fixing in the international markets of corn, that makes some of the eventual betrayals so damning and difficult to watch yet so very funny at the same time. The film ultimately becomes one in which there is no clear bad guy in all of it. Not because people haven’t done something wrong, but because you end up caring about the characters despite what they’ve done. None of the characters really seem underhanded or angry in what they do. Perhaps that’s why when things start to go wrong you don’t really see it coming.

So much about this movie is understated and unexpected. From the acting to the camera work and the storytelling, which I think is what makes it work so well. This isn’t a movie about clear lines between right and wrong, or good versus bad. It’s about people, and the way in which people go wrong in their pursuit of success.

Would you hire The Informant? I probably wouldn’t, but I would definitely hire the people who made the film.

How many people are left “Up in the Air”?

People who know me for any serious period of time know that I spend a fairly large part of my time in search of a job. My biggest dream is to work full time in the creative industry. An industry that almost by default lends itself to unstable bouts of employment. The fact that my own life seems to have a high turnover of employment, I like to think, prepares me for what I live in hope will be my ultimate career. Living with that reality means that I have a certain amount of experience leaving companies as well as joining them. So when I sat down and watched the movie “Up in the Air”, I couldn’t help but enjoy seeing things from the other side of the proverbial table when it comes to letting people go.

Thankfully, I have never worked for a company that has the money or resources to employ what might only be described as a termination specialist to do the job of letting me go, but I can’t imagine its much of a picnic for anyone involved. I know it’s never been much for me. However much like the main characters in the film itself, Ryan Bingham and Natalie Keener (played by George Clooney and Anna Kendrick respectively), I find that I have developed a certain amount of emotional distance from the jobs that I get and the way in which I deal with them, which makes dealing with the loss of the job all the easier to leave if and more often than not when necessary.  To paraphrase from Fight Club that I have somewhat embraced:

“I am not my job. I am not my possessions or my position in society.”

In as much as that is true of me, this is true of the characters of “Up in the Air”. Even though their jobs are their lives, the characters themselves are not their jobs. They are both defined by, and yet set themselves apart from their jobs. It’s an interesting contradiction that plays itself out in the film. A lot of their lives revolve around the work that they do, and yet they still find time to go to parties, meet people, and find time to relax in between the work that they do. I suppose it’s ironic that a film about the end of people’s employment doesn’t depict the job the main characters do for a living as soul crushing. That Ryan Bingham (Clooney) actually likes the work that he does, hard as it may be, and Natalie Keener (Kendrick) spends much of the film trying to move past the more difficult parts of a job in which she is constantly confronted with the absolute worst moments of many people’s lives.

Also worthy of note is that my bias against any actor participating in the films of Twilight has been fundamentally shifted by Anna Kendrick in this film. While I still generally question anyone’s willingness to play a part in a film series that is so incredibly terrible on so many levels, watching Kendrick perform in movies like this and 50/50 have helped me to separate the material from the actor and appreciate the people involved all the more. She plays the character of Natalie with subtly and emotional depth that I don’t really see in Twilight when I have watched it.

Clooney of course, is, well, Clooney. Even as a man with a face so recognizable, he manages to embody the character of Ryan Bingham beautifully who believes in a life without connection while developing a need to connect with people.

So how many people are left “Up in the Air” by this film? I’m guessing not many.