The Informant! (2009) - Soderbergh and Damon's terrific true-crime dramedy

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+ Best True-Story Movie of the Year

Matt Damon looks hilariously moronic on this poster for Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!

In the beginning of the 1990s, a rising star in a major agricultural company in Illinois decides to reveal practices involving prize-fixing, embezzlement and mob methods in his own business in regards to the enormous and enormously overlooked lysine market, (an animal feed additive.) - But who is this Mark Whitacre?

Hold on to your straps, because The Informant! sweeps you on a super-intelligent ride into an incredible true story, which unfolds in such a way that one can only guess along the way as to how things actually fit together. Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting (1997)) is eminent in the title role, who also acts as the story's unreliable narrator. He leads a phenomenal supporting cast of lesser known actors and stand up comedians, who contribute to the film's hilarious moments.
To this is added a hijinks game score by Marvin Hamlisch (Bananas (1971)), whose last score this was before his death in 2012, and the usual super photography we have been led to expect from master Georgian director-cinematographer Steven Soderbergh's (King of the Hill (1993)) films.
The Informant! is written by Scott Z. Burns (Side Effects (2013)), based on Kurt Eichenwald's (Serpent on the Rock (2007)) non-fiction book The Informant (2000), and Burns' script is an always moving animal with a great eye for the often humorous paradoxes of the story. The Informant! is a crazy-good film, which I highly recommended.

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 Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 22 mil. $
Box office: 41.7 mil. $
= Big flop
[The Informant! premiered 7 September (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 108 minutes. Filming took place in Arizona, Illinois, including Chicago, Hawaii, California, including Los Angeles, Missouri, Paris, France and in Zurich, Switzerland from April - June 2008 with additional shooting in November 2008. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, to a 10.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it fell to #4 in its second week and then left the top 5, grossing 33.3 mil. $ (79.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 2.1 mil. $ (5 %) and Australia with 1.2 mil. $ (2.9 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this review. The film was nominated for 2 Golden Globes. The Informant! is certified fresh at 79 % with a 6.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Informant!?

Contagion (2011) - Soderbergh's global pandemic creep-out

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2 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Screenplay: Scott Z. Burns (lost to Rory Stewart Kinnear, Lynne Ramsay for We Need to Talk About Kevin)
Best Editing: Stephen Mirrione (lost to The Artist)

+ Best Disaster Movie of the Year

The anxiety-provoking, star-studded poster for Steven Soderbergh's Contagion

A woman returns to Minneapolis from a trip to Hong Kong and dies. Symptoms and more deaths follow in rapid succession in many other places around the world. Soon it is certain: A new global pandemic is loose.

- Get ready to get goosebumps and freak out! 
Contagion is an extremely well-oiled catastrophe thriller first and foremost, telling a story that focuses on several auspicious points of impact. It showcases an impressive ensemble cast: Elliott Gould (Ocean's Thirteen (2007)), Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road (2008)), Gwyneth Palthrow (Se7en (1995)), Laurence Fishburne (Apocalypse Now (1979)), Jude Law (A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)) as a pain-in-the-ass protest blogger, and Matt Damon (Interstellar (2014)) is strong in the string that is the heart of the story.
As usual, master filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (Haywire (2011)) is able to serve a deeply modern and starkly realistic tale, (Contagion has received praise from several scientists that are experts in the medical disaster field.) Part of its effectiveness comes from its feeling so eerily credible.
The film is structured as a multi-character presentation of the medical catastrophe with some fine points-of-interest chosen to illuminate the processes at play in such a dire situation. It loses some air, paradoxically, once the panic spreads, but then tightens its suspense again. It is excellently written by Scott Z. Burns (The Informant! (2009)), photographed by Soderbergh himself and edited to perfection. Contagion is a great creeper of a movie.
Soderbergh is still on break as a director, serving at the moment, instead, as executive producer and cinematographer on Magic Mike XXL (2015).


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Gweneth Palthrow in a scary still from Steven Soderbergh's Contagion

Watch the trailer here

Cost: 60 mil. $
Box office: 135.4 mil. $
= Minor flop
[Soderbergh's style and storytelling seems to often be too sophisticated and serious to attract the huge crowds, and with a big-budgeted feature like Contagion, this became a commercial hindrance: The film premiered #1 in the US with 23.1 mil. $ and ended its domestic run with 75.6 mil. $ (56 % of the total gross). Contagion has made in excess of 12 mil. $ on DVD and Bluray sales.]

What do you think of Contagion?
Other movies about pandemics that are worth seeing?

Side Effects (2013) - Modern people screw up in excellent thriller

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+ Best Thriller of the Year

Four stars with apprehensive looks are divided by a blood-red medical cross on this poster for Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects

 

Side Effects is Georgian master filmmaker Steven Soderbergh's (Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)) second film in 2013, the other one being Liberace-biopic Behind the Candelabra, which was also favorably reviewed by Film Excess here: Behind the Candelabra (2013) - Restraint and extravagance. It is his 24th feature.
This one is a psychological thriller about psychotropic drugs, their use, over-use and implications in America today. If it sounds like a university lecture for people with glasses, don't worry, it's not. Side Effects is a wildly successful suspense-movie.

 

Following a possible suicide attempt, the young wife of a convicted inside-trading perpetrator is introduced to some experimental drugs, which come with unexpected side effects.

 
Side Effects is also the kind of thriller where you don't want to give away an elaborate plot summary, because it would ruin too much of the ride of seeing the film. Suffice to say, Jude Law (Spy (2015)) is excellent as an over-worked but well-intentioned psychiatrist who finds himself in a serious jam; Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)) is his patient, Catherine Zeta-Jones (The Darling Buds of May (1991-93)) is her old psychiatrist, and Channing Tatum (22 Jump Street (2014)) is her husband.
The exciting script by Scott Z. Burns (The Laundromat (2019)) has more than one unforeseen twist, which impresses along the way. If you have misgivings that Side Effects looks more like well-intended criticism of the pharmaceutical world than an exciting watch, luckily, you're wrong. (And this is perhaps a fault in its marketing.) The film does implicitly say that our over-medicated culture comes with some sick, unwanted side effects, but it goes no further than that, keeping its eye square on the thriller ball.
All the actors are safe in Soderbergh's seasoned direction, and new-comer Mara surprised me positively with her performance in a difficult role. So look out for her.
Otherwise it's a slick and very enjoyable operation: Soderbergh's own photography is as usual über-professional; the editing is sharp, the pacing perfect. And Thomas Newman's (The Judge (2014)) score is right on.

SPOILER A couple of little things annoyed me slightly in the story: There's a scene wherein some people, including Law's doctor character, sit and talk, and they just so happen to shed light on the disagreeable grease that big pharmaceutical companies sometimes use to persuade doctors to use their drugs, (expensive tickets, dinners etc.) This is not really a necessary information for the particular story, and the lines spoken felt out of place. If Burns felt that needed to be in Side Effects, it could have been handled more smoothly elsewhere, I feel.
SPOILER The other little thing is the harsh reaction of the doctor's wife, once he starts to see a tough time. This may very well be a realistic reaction from a modern married woman today, but it is depressing, and we've seen it too much in recent fiction. How about building up relationships via fiction portrayals as well sometimes, instead of always pointing out how weak and easily collapsible the modern nuclear family is? And just to be clear, that path need not compromise the film's suspense. There are multitudes of other ways the wife could have reacted besides leaving her husband immediately.
These are, in any case, minor detractors from Side Effects, which has a top-performing and very good-looking main cast and a smart, pulsating story. Don't miss it.

 

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Check out the trailer for Side Effects here

Cost: 30 mil. $
Box office: 63.3 mil. $
= Flop (returned 2.11 times its cost)

[Side Effects premiered 31 January (New York) and runs 106 minutes. Shooting took place in New York from April - May 2012. It opened #3, behind fellow new release Identity Thief and hold-over hit Warm Bodies, to a 9.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd week and grossed 32.1 mil. $ (50.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 7.5 mil. $ (11.8 %) and France with 3.6 mil. $ (5.7 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Soderbergh returned with Behind the Candelabra (2013). Mara returned in Her (2013); Tatum in G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013); Law in Dom Hemingway (2013); and Zeta-Jones in RED 2 (2013). Side Effects is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.30/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Side Effects?