The Informant! (2009)
Slightly comic, slightly silly, overtly serious movie (or taking itself seriously, maybe) that is fun but not especially funny or great. It's not terribly made or anything, but doesn't quite find a groove, the way comedies like this, without a lot of punch lines, require. The humor here, a kind of charcoal gray with glitter in it (not a black comedy at all) is about the odd ambiance behind seemingly ordinary reactions.
Maybe I was in a bad mood, but even the groovy, effective 1970s music, which I love, came off as too cool and trendy for its own good, especially since the movie was set in the 1990s. Likewise, the flashy
typeface used for captions now and then is more distracting than "fun."
The whole idea of an informant going slightly rogue, partly by not quite getting what's going on, is crazy enough to work. The stereotypes are easy to get, and easy to work off of. And more tragic twists as it goes lose their surface humor, of course, but the movie still keeps a glossy, glib, entertaining glide.
Matt Damon? He's his usual self, determined to be a good actor and succeeding, even at a kind of silly/serious part. I like him, and I like him here. The fact the plot is based on truth is interesting, but by luck (bad luck maybe) I just saw The Insider where the same idea (with Crowe as the Damon equivalent) was taken with utter seriousness, and more impressively.
Slightly comic, slightly silly, overtly serious movie (or taking itself seriously, maybe) that is fun but not especially funny or great. It's not terribly made or anything, but doesn't quite find a groove, the way comedies like this, without a lot of punch lines, require. The humor here, a kind of charcoal gray with glitter in it (not a black comedy at all) is about the odd ambiance behind seemingly ordinary reactions.
Maybe I was in a bad mood, but even the groovy, effective 1970s music, which I love, came off as too cool and trendy for its own good, especially since the movie was set in the 1990s. Likewise, the flashy
typeface used for captions now and then is more distracting than "fun."
The whole idea of an informant going slightly rogue, partly by not quite getting what's going on, is crazy enough to work. The stereotypes are easy to get, and easy to work off of. And more tragic twists as it goes lose their surface humor, of course, but the movie still keeps a glossy, glib, entertaining glide.
Matt Damon? He's his usual self, determined to be a good actor and succeeding, even at a kind of silly/serious part. I like him, and I like him here. The fact the plot is based on truth is interesting, but by luck (bad luck maybe) I just saw The Insider where the same idea (with Crowe as the Damon equivalent) was taken with utter seriousness, and more impressively.