Amidst all the hype revolving around Steven Soderbergh’s Che Guevara biopic, there are precious few who were even aware about his other film “The Informant!” releasing this year. However after sitting through the 108 minutes (it seems nearer to 180!) of the slow paced adaptation of the Kurt Eichenwald book, it seems that the majority might just be right about something for the first time! According to the most of post release reports, bulk of the cine goers have apparently decided to give the flick a miss and it can be indeed stated that they are not really missing much.

On the plot level, the film revolves around the real life story of Mark Whitacre who made headlines as the most renowned whistleblower in the American corporate world being a top level executive himself. An employee of the Illinois based conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) who is in the process of steadily climbing up the ladder of success, suffers from a case of bipolar disorder and succumbing to the pressure of his wife decides to turn over to the FBI a whole assortment of evidence in form of written documents and audio and video tapes that charge his company with price fixing in the wake of stiff market competition. An apparent stressful period of three years followed where he worked for the FBI organizing surveillances and gathering evidences to build up the case against ADM, in between which Mark’s own struggle with his psychic disorder gets worse. Finally at the end of it, during the case against ADM, it suddenly gets revealed that Mark Whitacre has been involved in fraud and embezzlement worth $9 million from his own organization resulting in a prison sentence for Mark which is thrice that of his corrupt colleagues.

While Matt Damon’s performance as Mark Whitacre has been generally praised by the critics, it must be said that Damon is not seen doing anything with the character that he hasn’t done in his previous outings. In fact, one can easily detect the shadows of his previous performances in Syriana and the Bourne franchise lurking somewhere behind Damon’s portrayal of Mark. However, the real or rather the essential problem of the film lies with the script. One must admit that it’s a real weak one coming from the man who could go as intense as Lies and Videotapes, Traffic or as tongue-in-the-cheek as the Ocean’s series. “The Informant!” lacks the very fluidity of the narrative expected from a director like Soderbergh and every five or ten minutes duration, the narrative seems to fall flat owing to problems with the pacing and structuring of the film, the weak and feeble attempts at inducing a notion of black humor in certain dialogues, an unsuitable film score and finally what looked like a desperate attempt from the makers at trying their hands on a satirical comedy with a script that demanded a certain different tonality of treatment altogether. It must be said that despite the best efforts from the director to put things into perspective as logically as possible, a lot remains unanswered that gradually takes the attention away from the screen.