Erin Brockovich and Traffic director Steven Soderbergh knows how to make riveting films based on true events. But this story - of how the FBI nailed a global food additive price-fixing scam in the early ’90s - is set apart by the fascinating character of the man who blew the whistle.
Mark Whitacre (Damon), an executive at one of the companies involved, offers to act as informant to the FBI, gathering evidence from the inside. But instead of a shiny hero Whitacre is an eccentric, complex, ambitious and quite deluded man; a compulsive liar with his own dark agenda - as the exasperated agent assigned to the case, Brian Shepard (Bakula), soon discovers.
Soderbergh plays up the comedy element, of which there is plenty as the bespectacled, moustached Whitacre drives the FBI, his lawyers and his wife crazy with his nonstop lying. There’s a dark side too as it becomes clear this man really isn’t well. Damon brings his troubled soul to such brilliant life you can’t take your eyes off the screen. Highly recommended. Bonus: deleted scenes.
Dark comedy. 2009. 104 min. With Matt Damon and Scott Bakula. Director: Steven Soderbergh. 16L.
Rating: 4/5
Reviewer: Willem Möller