TRUE LIES It’s Damon versus the polygraph.

Just as Erin Brockovich was first and foremost a showcase for Julia Roberts, The Informant! is basically The Matt Damon Show. As überdorky biochemist-turned-corporate-errand-boy-turned-whistle-blower Mark Whitacre, Damon plays his character as just brilliant enough to be capable of a double life; just genuine enough to risk his career for no apparent motive; just stupid enough that he could blow his cover at any time; and just squirrely enough that he can’t be trusted to follow instructions, even sensible ones. The higher the stakes are raised and the more complex the investigation becomes, the more gaspingly, cringingly funny The Informant! gets. The movie is a virtuoso demonstration of Hitchcock’s classic definition of suspense—characters sitting around a table with a bomb under it—except in this case, Damon, with his oversize spectacles and ridiculous mustache, is the bomb.

Because The Informant! is a Soderbergh film, the story unfolds at a remove. The director frequently has Whitacre launch into an unrelated, hilariously desultory voiceover mid-sentence, and that inability to focus becomes both the movie’s strategy and its subject. At some point, it becomes clear that we’re meant to identify as much with Whitacre’s FBI contacts (particularly Bakula’s well-meaning confidant) as we are with him, and Soderbergh pulls off this balance of sympathies deftly and seamlessly. The movie is as much a procedural as it is a tribute, as much a case study as it is a comedy. The Informant! isn’t the director’s masterpiece by any stretch, but it’s proof that among his many gifts, he’s a peerless purveyor of Hollywood entertainment.

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