Review of The Informant! (2009) by Daniel C — 06 Dec 2010

SPOILER ALERT!

The Informant! sneaks up on you in quite a good way. initially, Mark Whitacre appears to be a simple, bumbling, dimwitted man with a tightly wound ethic, but as the satire develops it is shown that he is in fact suffering from bipolar disorder and that his actions aren't entirely clear to even himself. this complexity kept the character alive when the first half had Whitacre failing more and more in relevancy. It's the kind of twist that a show like The Office should use on the tired idiocy of Michael Scott, but never will.

I imagine that this film made a very natural transition from book to screen, much like Fight Club, in that the voice-overs make for perfect narration pieces over the scenes and the monologue also adds insightful foreshadowing to the result of the story. I almost want to watch the film all over again, just to pay closer attention to the peculiarity of these manic overlays. overall, this is an extremely unique and original film with a dark comedy mood that is just light enough that if you're not careful you could easily miss the complexity that the satire brings to the story.