Review Summary

If you want to know why Steven Soderbergh tapped Marvin Hamlisch to write the zany score for “The Informant!,” a deadly serious comedy about corporate malfeasance, consider the title’s exclamation point. Like that unexpected mark of exuberance, which hints at fun times (yippee!), the brassy horns and racing piano notes of the neo-slapstick score — think of “Laugh-In,” “Bananas” and Benny Hill — initially suggest that Mr. Soderbergh has put on his party hat and broken out the kazoo. Except that he isn’t laughing, or at least not all the way through. The story he tells is too maddening for sustained mirth, so he kills the jokes, with a vengeance. "The Informant!" is a smart, cynical movie about how we buy now — oops, I mean, how we live now. Money makes the world go ’round in “The Informant!,” much as it does everywhere. — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times