Informant!, The

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

As Soderbergh lovingly peels away veil after veil of deception, the film develops into an unexpected human comedy. Not that any of the characters are laughing.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

The Informant! chooses to earn its exclamation point with giggles as well as shock, and the results are thoroughly entertaining.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Its got a deliciously audacious and cheeky tenor.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

It is Mr. Soderbergh’s insistence on seeing the A.D.M. scandal as a collective tragedy rather than as another white-collar crime that gives the movie force, resonance, feeling.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

By turning a whistle-blower into a tragicomic figure, Soderbergh sustains our interest in a complicated financial scheme and rewards it with a kickback of ghastly laughs.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

More than any previous screen role, this one affords Damon a chance to work his sly comic chops.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

There is devilish fun in this look into 1990s white-collar crime. But the jokes are the kind you choke on.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Damon is an agile comic performer, and Soderbergh knows how to serve him up without losing sight of the ultimate seriousness behind it all.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

With composure so out of fashion these days in the public square, Steven Soderbergh's adamantly restrained The Informant! arrives like a cleansing tonic.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

With Steven Soderbergh at the helm, this has become a whimsical, semi-comedic romp, complete with a score by Marvin Hamlisch that recalls kitschy '70s TV shows, cutesy captions, and a tongue-and-cheek approach to the entire story.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Soderbergh takes a deadly serious news story and amplifies and colors it to the point of outrageousness. The results aren't always consistent, but they are undeniably compelling.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

More amusing than laugh-out-loud hilarious, but is never boring.

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

Matt Damon's old-fashioned, brilliantly calibrated character turn as a corporate schnook-turned-whistle-blower; and Marvin Hamlisch's retro-groovy score. For the movie's first hour or so, the pair of them together make for four-star entertainment. The last half hour, not so much.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

It wouldn't stick in the memory were it not for Matt Damon's audacious, baggy-pants portrayal of corporate whistle-blower Mark Whitacre, the antihero of this reality-based farce.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The Informant! may be a gadfly of a movie, but it's not without bite.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Bakula is the ideal surrogate for a perplexed audience. Similarly, Whitacre's exasperated wife, played by Melanie Lynskey, is drily funny.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A whimsical and light-hearted spin on a serious story of corporate whistleblowing.

Premiere Mark Salisbury

A comic tour de force from Damon, who gained 30lbs and sports an unflattering moustache as the dishonest and delusional Whitacre. But it’s a performance that never loses sight of the man behind the lies.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

In The Informant!, that brain -- screwy and yet capable of doing important undercover work -- free-associates like Ellen DeGeneres on a swing through Walmart. Cute, but as even Agent 86 would say in "Get Smart": Missed it by that much.

The New Yorker David Denby

By the end, Soderbergh’s movie subverts common belief far more effectively than some of the fantasy movies knocking around this summer. It’s a vertiginous experience that grows increasingly hilarious, and the joke is on us.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Unfortunately, every laugh is bludgeoned nearly to death by Marvin Hamlisch's jokey score of neo-James Bond riffs and 70s sitcom melodies; I liked the movie quite a bit, but by the end I felt as if I were at a live TV show with a blinking sign ordering me to LAUGH.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Not for the first time in his career, Soderbergh has made a mainstream film that is simultaneously a thought experiment.

Film Threat Jessica Baxter

It’s not a perfect film, but it’s definitely the Soder-side I prefer.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Maybe Soderbergh felt as though he already did a straight-ahead version of this story with "Erin Brockovich" and therefore decided to revamp the tune in the key of Richard Lester.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The movie’s fun to watch, but you can tell it was a lot more fun to make, and that’s a problem. The party stays up on the screen; down here, it’s been over for a year.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Amusingly eccentric rather than outright funny.

Time Richard Corliss

The Informant! may end up closer to the non-starters. Its lunacy is too deadpan, and its denouement too drawn out, to appeal to those who liked the Bourne movies, or, for that matter, the Gore. But it's worth seeing, and a salutary achievement.

Empire Kim Newman

It sets out to be less pompous than similar films, which inevitably means it feels less substantial. While amusing rather than hilarious, it ought to establish Matt Damon as a star character actor.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Has two aces going for it: Soderbergh's poking at the maze­like holes in American business and Damon's whirling dervish performance.

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

The truth, however, is that for much of Soderbergh's film, it's all as yawn-inducing as its premise.

Slate Dana Stevens

Soderbergh whiplashes his viewers between two contrasting mental states that are best described as "jaunty" and "wrenching."

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The whole film, a comedy about crime and mental illness, seems at war with itself.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

This is yet another of Soderbergh’s “exercises in style,” which means he has one big idea and sticks to it. He makes the space shallow and ugly (faces are bathed in orange) and adds groovy sixties titles and Marvin Hamlisch music.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

Unlike the director's usual organic efforts--in which great style never results in overstylized--The Informant! feels overamped from start to shrugging finish.

Time Out New York Keith Uhlich

Director-cinematographer Steven Soderbergh’s indifference to the material is palpable and of a piece with his deathly dull output of late.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

While this film fits squarely into Soderbergh's recurrent goal of ignoring audience interest when possible, that's the only area in which it can be considered a success.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's overextended and exhaustingly comic.