The Informant

My favorite part of blogging is the interaction with other bloggers. (Well, that and the great lookin' blogger groupies who like to hang around backstage.) This movie commentary is provided by my friend, Hoyt. Check out his blog at Donutbuzz.

******************MEMORANDUM*******************

TO: THE FILM GEEK
CC: READERS OF THE FILM GEEK
FROM: DONUTBUZZ
DATE: OCTOBER 2, 2009
RE: "THE INFORMANT" SUCKED

Last Friday afternoon, I played hooky from work to see "The Informant," a film that I greatly anticipated watching after seeing its official trailer (see it here ). Unfortunately, my expectations far exceeded their fulfillment, and in hindsight I now wish I had spent that afternoon in the office working on a brief of a case that I have only a snowball's chance in Hell of reversing on appeal.

Don't get me wrong. Matt Damon rocks. I dig Scott Bakula. And Thomas C. Wilson + Clancy Brown = awesome casting in my book. In fact, I can't fault Steven Soderbergh's direction of "The Informant" or really complain about anyone's performance. So what went wrong?

Well, in a nutshell, the official trailer for "The Informant" ruined any laughs that this flick might have prompted from me. I mean, I expected to get at least a couple good "belly laughs" from this flick, but I think at most I might have cracked a smile over the nearly two hours that I sat in the theater--and even then I suspect it was because I was really savoring my nachos with the extra jalapenos. I'm telling you, when the best joke in the whole flick occurs halfway through its official trailer, you're in real trouble, folks.

I'm pretty sure, in fact, that--like me--most people expected to see a Coen brothers farce after watching "The Informant's" trailer. But if we've learned anything from watching "American Idol" all these years, it's this: You can't imitate the superstars without setting yourself and your audience up for a major league disappointment and being voted off the island the next week. Or to paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen, "Matt Damon, you're no Wiliam H. Macy."(Hell, with "The Informant's" screenplan, I seriously doubt that even William H. Macy could be William H. Macy in this one.)

In the hopes of resolving unfulfilled expectations created by previews for films like "The Informant," therefore, I have a simple proposal. I think that until Congress can figure out a way to provide us all with affordable health care that what it really needs to do is to focus its energies on passing legislation mandating that only the Coen brothers make Coen brothers films. That way, when we see a preview for a movie that seems to play like a Coen brothers film, we'll all know we're really getting a Coen brothers film and nobody will be disappointed.

And best of all, we won't ever regret playing hooky from work.