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Sep. 21st, 2009
The Informant!
Sep. 21st, 2009 09:41 pmSo I just got back from The Informant and I really liked it. It's the story of Mark "Corky" Whitacre, a guy whose life seems destined for a three-hour Oscar nominee. He was the most highly-ranked executive in US history to be a whistleblower, struggles with bipolar disorder, and eventually manages to redeem himself to a jaw-dropping extent. What makes the movie really smart is that instead of dramatizing his life, it makes it a punchline.
The movie's big coup is casting Jason Bourne as a guy who thinks he's Jason Bourne, more or less. Matt Damon does a great job of making this guy a fuckwit, but a believable one, not somebody who just acts whacky for a punchline. You'll wince as much as you laugh.
Now the movie takes a gamble and that is that it plays the story straight, but then edits it as a comedy. It's almost like a spiritual successor to Airplane! Every actor in it is performing their roles like they're in an Oscar-worthy biopic, except for Damon. But by giving us his internal monologue and the use of this outrageously bombastic music, the movie shows how risible it is that so much is hanging on this guy who's a complete fuck-up, which just makes it funnier.
Without being hamfisted, it's a pretty savage indictment of our tendency to try to be the heroes of our stories, which here ends up being a cautionary tale about how we need to pull our heads out of our asses and listen to other people instead of our own internal monologue.
The movie's big coup is casting Jason Bourne as a guy who thinks he's Jason Bourne, more or less. Matt Damon does a great job of making this guy a fuckwit, but a believable one, not somebody who just acts whacky for a punchline. You'll wince as much as you laugh.
Now the movie takes a gamble and that is that it plays the story straight, but then edits it as a comedy. It's almost like a spiritual successor to Airplane! Every actor in it is performing their roles like they're in an Oscar-worthy biopic, except for Damon. But by giving us his internal monologue and the use of this outrageously bombastic music, the movie shows how risible it is that so much is hanging on this guy who's a complete fuck-up, which just makes it funnier.
Without being hamfisted, it's a pretty savage indictment of our tendency to try to be the heroes of our stories, which here ends up being a cautionary tale about how we need to pull our heads out of our asses and listen to other people instead of our own internal monologue.