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Friday, October 16, 2009

Crime / Film On The Informant!

Posted by Grant Brissey on Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 10:36 AM

I saw The Informant! last night, which I found to be mildly entertaining, but not necessarily entertaining enough to justify its length—at 108 minutes it felt rather tedious at the end. Matt Damon does deliver a fine performance, as does Scott Bakula as the overly sympathetic G-Man. Anyway, about half way through, I realized I'd heard the story before in one of the best episodes of This American Life, "The Fix Is In".* If you're planning on seeing the film, I highly suggest listening to "The Fix Is In" afterward. It's sort of like watching Apocalypse Now and Hearts of Darkness back to back—not to be done in the reverse order.

*Commenter TBne mentioned "The Fix Is In" in the comments here, and the episode re-aired on September 15th, but I had not noticed either until last night.

Comments (2) RSS

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Yes, I felt the same, except I heard the This American Life episode first. It helped support the time sitting there going "Wow, this is barely different than the documentary description" - except some liberties with dialogue for story, humor and effect.
Great performances all over, but yes, it dragged on by the end.

Posted by hominidX on October 16, 2009 at 11:25 AM

I remember listening to the Fix is In 9 years ago. People should hear it first, then see the movie.

Posted by Ms. Fix-It on October 16, 2009 at 12:35 PM