The Last Movie I Saw

Last Saturday I went to see the new Steven Soderbergh movie, The Informant! Soderbergh is a real hit or miss artist, though he always turns out something interesting. The Informant! is one of his more entertaining efforts (it reminds me, in tone if not plot, of his earlier Out of Sight), but also offers something of an intellectual kick as well. Matt Damon plays the titular snitch, a high level executive in a massive corporation engaged in all kinds of nefarius shenanigans. Based on a true story, it hints at how the corruption of big business infuses the entire system, while any efforts to clean things up get hung up on the inevitable revelation that no one can be trusted to come entirely clean. A lot has been made of the jokey soundtrack music by Marvin Hamlisch, and it's seeming incongruity with the more serious dimensions of the film. But in the end, it's perfectly appropriate: either Soderbergh is saying that all you can do is laugh, or, alternatively, admit that the joke is on us-- "us" being the poor saps who are ultimately victimized by such institutional graft, which continues regardless of what happens to those few who happen to be caught. There was a time when I thought that films like this might shake people up enough to do something about the problems they expose; but as time goes by, it's hard not to think most viewers will merely see it as an evening's entertainment, maybe applaud at the end and go home and forget it. I'd like to think Americans haven't lost their capacity for deserved outrage, but I no longer harbor the illusion that it can be sparked by a movie, even one as good as this. Which I guess means the joke really is on us.