At the Movies

by Esther McCarthy

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DAMON’S BOURNE TO ACT THE SPY

THE INFORMANT! (15A) starstarstarstar

HIS OWN LITTLE WORLD: Matt Damon stars as whistle-blower Mark WhitacreTHE STARS: Matt Damon

THE STORY: The tale of Mark Whitacre, the strangest inside man that the FBI could ever work with.

Matt Damon tickles his - and everyone else's - funny bone with a wonderful performance in this oddball espionage movie.

Complete with a flabby belly, a bald spot and a dodgy tache, the character Damon brings to the big screen here is about as far from the slick Jason Bourne as an actor could ever be.

Trouble is, the character, Mark Whitacre, truly believes he is in a Bourne adventure and thinks he's the smartest inside guy who ever walked the face of the earth. And it's his Walter Mitty chancer who makes this sometimes-mannered film a winner.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the film is loosely based on the real-life escapades of Whitacre, a rising star at US agricultural company ADM who, for no apparent reason, decided to blow the whistle on price fixing within the company hierarchy in the 1990s.

The FBI are all over it like a rash, pushing their man to put his claims on the record and spy on the colleagues involved.

This puts pressure on Whitacre, who initially calls himself "0014, because I'm twice as smart as 007", but gradually realises that he's in way over his head.

As the Fed's only source, Whitacre is hugely important - but it's only as the film twists and turns that they realise there's far more to their inside man's tale than meets the eye.

These twists may initially seem confusing but this is one crazy story and it's to Soderbergh's credit that the audience only get to find out about developments as the main protagonists do.

There's lots of fun to be had here but Damon and Soderbergh get the tone right in depicting the dark side of Whitacre's predicament, too.

He was diagnosed as bipolar and the movie shows how he struggles to cope with his own developing illness. Smart corporate chancer or an ill man who was taken advantage of?

The pleasure in this film is that it tells Whitacre's extraordinary story without tying too many neat bows.

THE VERDICT:

The wackiest espionage thriller you're likely to see, Damon's central performance is both hilarious and touching - and proof that he's a far more versatile actor than he's given credit for.

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