'Informant' watchers in for a treat

Damon

It's not often that a property directed by Steven Soderbergh and featuring Matt Damon in a lead role gets overlooked, but that's exactly what happened earlier this year with The Informant, a film based on the Kurt Eichenwald novel.

The massive novel The Informant: A True Story, about the fate of a whistle blower at a large corporation, was mined beautifully for the film that critics loved but viewers were few. Perhaps, the main reason for The Informant getting rather short treatment was that Damon's performance in Clint Eastwood's Invictus earned him an Oscar nomination and pretty much monopolized any headlines the young actor received in 2009.

But The Informant (Warner), which will be released on DVD Tuesday, is far from a minor work. Like The Insider, another film about corporate inner workings and intrigue, The Informant takes audiences behind the scenes at a major firm.

Mark Whitacre (Damon) is a brilliant biochemist who's risen through the ranks to the position of junior executive. But along the way he's noticed that there are things going on definitely illegal, most notably price fixing. Whitacre decides to notify the FBI about what's he seen and they in turn recruit him to be their undercover eyes and ears.

There's just one problem. Whitacre has some sizable personal issues, among them the fact he's at best bi-polar and at worst suicidal and possibly homicidal.

As they build their case, the FBI handlers also start to notice that their asset is becoming more of a liability. Plus there's a lot more to the case than initially suggested.

Soderbergh (who doubled as the film's photographer) has made this as much a suspense/mystery yarn as a character study, and he keeps inserting surprises and twists that make it a lot more compelling and interesting than the normal case study of someone spilling the beans on their employers would be.

The DVD doesn't have a lot of extras, but the acting of Damon, as well as other cast members Scott Bakula, Joel McHale and Melanie Lynskey make The Informant a top caliber production. Hopefully it will get a boost in the home video market.

TV on DVD

Multi-Emmy winner Edie Falco's first star turn since The Sopranos is the Showtime series Nurse Jackie, which was renewed for a second season after only three episodes. Tuesday the DVD Nurse Jackie: Season 1 (Lionsgate) will be released and it displays Falco's formidable talents in a series that would be little more than primetime soap opera with anyone else in the title role.

Falco's Jackie Peyton character is a veteran nurse battling everything from meager budgets and disinterested doctors to her own drug habits and family dysfunction. Over the first 12 episodes, Peyton alternates between exasperation and triumph, anger and despair, while also coping with unrealistic demands from supervisors and tensions at home.

Plus she's also involved in an affair when not trying to feed her addiction without being caught.

Though there are times during these shows when it seems like someone moved Grey's Anatomy to Showtime, once you hear the familiar torrent of vulgarity you'll know this is a cable program. Still, Falco's steady and often magnificent acting makes Nurse Jackie always watchable and frequently outstanding.