Who's who and what's what?

New post for the film The Informant, enjoy.

Mark Whitacre works for a large company called ADM, he is a biologist but has been asked to learn the business side of the company for a promotion and to further his career. He is doing well with his job and earns a good wage but things at work start to go wrong and strange things happen.
Mark receives a call from a rival company saving there is a mole working at ADM and they want a large sum of money to reveal who it is and so the FBI get called in to investigate. Before the case can be investigated Mark reveals to the FBI about price fixing which is effecting the world’s economy. Mark is asked by the two agents to work undercover to help them reveal the scam.

Mark is pleased to be helping the FBI and he believes that once all the scam is exposed he will be inline for running the company. All is not as it seems though and just what will the FBI uncover and how will it affect Mark?
The only thing which appealed to me about this film was the fact that Matt Damon starred in it. I knew little about the storyline and was quite surprised when I discovered that it was based on a true story. I did enjoy the film and found the acting to be good from all involved but for me I just did not get the comedy side of it. There were a few good twists in the story, me and hubby both thought we had worked out how it was going to end but we were actually both wrong and loved the twist we did get.

Matt Damon took the lead role of Mark and he was good. He looked a lot more mature and he seemed to play the role with ease. There was a dodgy appearance from him but this was the 90’s fashion and the moustache he had, I did not like this but did manage to see past it. He delivered all of his lines with ease and even showed confidence in the right places and naivety when needed. He did come across as slightly dumb at times but this all became very apparent towards the end of the film and did help explain a lot. He had a good chemistry with his wife, for the few scenes that she was in and they seemed to be a very loving couple. I enjoyed the role of Investigator Brian Sheppard, played by Scott Bakula. He showed strength and determination in his character but also managed to show a more softer side when dealing with Mark. He delivered all of his lines with ease and handled the story very well.
Other good actors included, Melanie Lynskey, Tom Papa, Thomas Wilson and Eddie Jemmison, they all played quite different role and made for some good viewing.

The film was classed as a comedy but neither me or hubby got this element of the film, there were a few good one liners but no laugh out loud moments. We also did not get the fact that the film was set in the early 90’s but there was a 1960’s feel to the music and the title words which we had throughout the film telling us the date. I just thought this was odd and did not seem to fit very well together at all. The costumes were all good and they were actually quite funny. The grey suits and bright ties of the age were a joy to see again and the women’s hair styles and clothes were also quite funny. The age was apparent from the technology used in the offices and the equipment the FBI gave Mark to use. I think they did a good job getting the props and costumes to show the decade well.
There was some narration during the film from the character of Mark, this was useful at times but other times he would talk to us about irrelevant things, one part which sticks out to me was when he talked about the polar bears noses and how they hide them when hunting so they can blend into the snow, this had no real relevance on the story and seemed an odd thing to say, I don’t know if they were trying to play towards the comedy side of the film with this but it was another aspect I did not get.

This is a film only review so there are no bonus features to speak about. The running time of the film is 108 minutes and we found this to be quite long enough as if made any longer I would have started to loose interest in the story. The rate is a 15 and I do agree with this. The DVD can be bought from all good shops and also the internet. I would say it is worth around the £5-7 mark but no more. It is currently being shown on Sky Anytime and Premiere so try to catch it here for free.
I am only going to give this film 3 stars despite the good acting from Matt Damon. The story was good, made better by the fact it is based on a true story but we lost the comedy element completely. It is well worth a watch but wait for the price to drop for the DVD or catch it on the TV for free.