So the folks out at Warner Brothers sent me a copy of The Informant! to have a look at (and man is it ever WEIRD typing that exclamation point every time I type the title) and I’ll say this much for it…it’s BIZARRE.

The Informant!, featuring Matt Damon as the titular informant Mark Whitacre, involves a bizarre conspiracy for price fixing going on at Archer Daniels Midland.  Why is Whitacre turning whistleblower?  Well, no one’s quite sure.  Not even Mark, since his story changes, much like the Joker’s origin story in The Dark Knight, pretty much every time he’s asked about it.  But the more you find out about Mark Whitacre, the more you realize he’s not some bipolar wackjob…but what is he really?  You’ll find out.

This is actually based on the book of the same name, but the book purports to be a true story.

The Informant! is quite possibly one of the strangest movies I’ve ever seen. It’s like watching Ocean’s Eleven, except Steven Soderbergh is now taking his cues from  Mike Judge.  It’s a huge series of baffling maneuvers, but these baffling maneuvers are almost a clown show.  You know how in Ocean’s Eleven, all these complex maneuvers come together with downright spectacular results?  This is the opposite of that–a series of complex maneuvers that progressively fall apart throughout the course of the movie.

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so downright horrifying.

And the farther you get in to The Informant!, the more hilarious and horrifying it will get.  It devolves into a preposterous conclusion, and will even give you one of those awesome text crawls where you get to see how everybody’s life turned out afterward.

Even better is the sheer number of bizarre appearances that show up in here–Patton Oswalt, Mary Scheer, Tony Hale of Arrested Development fame…oh, and as an added surprise, when Mark shows up at the law firm of Epstein, Zaideman and Esrio….watch for Bob Zaideman.  And when he says “And you began making tapes? How many tapes did you make?”, picture him screeching “I AM ZIIIIIM!”

Yes, that is Richard Horvitz.

The voice of Invader Zim.

The Informant! proves to be a fantastic if bizarre and outlandish movie that should bring laughs, along with horrified grimaces at the screen.  The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, gives it an eight out of ten for being fun in a very wrong way.