BEFORE: I'm hoping this is the ultimate extension of the "common man caught up in intrigue" genre, even though the espionage here is of the corporate variety, not the international cloak-and-dagger stuff. Here we have a man who thinks of himself as a secret agent - but is he?
THE PLOT: The U.S. government decides to go after an agri-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president turned informant Mark Whitacre.
AFTER: The tone here was actually more similar to films like "Fast Food Nation" and "Flash of Genius", so I kind of wish I'd watch this one back in September, but I didn't really know it belonged in that chain because, you know, I hadn't seen it yet.
This is based on a true story, but a title card in the open informs us that dramatic license has been taken, facts have been changed, blah blah blah, offer valid in 49 states (SOR-ry, Tennessee!) so there's no real point in me looking up the details of the case and taking the filmmakers to task by pointing out their mistakes.
What begins as a businessman, played by Matt Damon (last seen in "Finding Forrester") coming forward to report price-fixing to the FBI starts to spiral out of control when the informant is too eager to please both the FBI and his bosses, so he starts stretching the truth. While attempts to get him to record meetings and supply hard evidence are made, each conspiracy leads to another one behind it, so, as in "The Man With One Red Shoe", the government ends up chasing its own tail around.
So there are twists, and we learn a little bit more about the situation, but I question the filmmaker's decision to have loud music or Whitacre's internal mental dialogue played over certain scenes - it makes me wonder what was wrong with the original dialogue recorded in those scenes that I couldn't hear. I didn't have any problems with the content of the internal dialogue, yes it rambled on, but sometimes those are the mental connections that people make.
I'm sure that there are secret backroom deals made in corporate America. I'm sure that people do embezzle money, and I'm sure that other people blow the whistle on them. I'm just not sure whether the corruption of corporations is a proper subject for a comedy. Reminder: comedies are supposed to be about funny things.
And you can't have it both ways, referencing films like "The Firm" and trying to be like "The Insider", and still be taken as a comedy. Casting a long list of comic actors and stand-up comedians doesn't automatically make your film a comedy either.
But the real take-away here is, honesty is indeed the best policy. If you have to lie, and then tell another lie to back up that lie, and so on, then where do you end up? This is something I've always believed...
Also starring (and this could take a while...) Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Tom Papa, Rick Overton (last seen in "The Astronaut Farmer"), Tom Wilson (Biff from "Back to the Future"), Scott Adsit (last seen in "Be Cool"), Tom AND Dick Smothers, Clancy Brown (last seen in "Blue Steel"), Tony Hale (last seen in "Stranger Than Fiction"), Patton Oswalt (last seen in "Blade: Trinity"), Paul F. Tompkins and Candy Clark (last seen in "Niagara, Niagara")
RATING: 5 out of 10 hidden cameras
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