The Informant!

Anyone who appreciates true dramatic talent has been biding their time through Ocean's 11, 12 and 13 waiting for Matt Damon to really show up. While the Bourne franchise itself is solid, the films are no shining example of what Damon is capable of. I don't want to hear protests of "but what about The Good Shepherd, The Departed?", because I'll beat your teeth in.
In Shepherd, Damon was hampered by the very controlled directorial style of Robert DeNiro, who insisted that Damon's Edward Wilson be automaton-like in his emotionality. While that may have been true to the fictionalized character (based loosely on James Jesus Angleton), it proves tediously tiresome when wanting to empathize with a character. As for The Departed, Damon did do a serviceable job. Although hearing the lilting and dulcet tones of a Boston accent, one longs for Will Hunting to take control of every situation Damon's Colin Sullivan mucks up.
In Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, Damon reminds us why he played Will instead of Ben. Set to Marvin Hamlisch's schmaltzy sounds, The Informant! is based on the Archer Daniels Midland price-fixing scandal of the mid 90's. Damon is Mark Whitacre, a high-level executive at ADM who conspires to bring down the agribusiness' top brass. Damon's Whitacre is an angle-free bundle of half-truths and excuses who makes us cringe with nearly every line. For all you actors and wannabes out there, Damon is someone who is remarkably in control of his instrument. For the rest of you who actually make a living, Damon is someone you buy as this character. Perfectly.
In 1998, if you were a young turk starting out in entertainment, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck loomed large. As Good Will Hunting garnered award after award, aspiring creative types saw its success as the new road to fame and fortune. Every actor tried to write, while most writers spent time begrudging Damon and Affleck's talent. Soon, as both men secured acting gigs with top-notch directors, young Hollywood began its feeding frenzy. Two male actor friends of mine claimed to know with certainty that Damon and Affleck had never actually written Hunting, citing the boys' lack of a follow-up script as evidence. My actress friends still tried to sleep with both at parties. Unsuccessfully, I might add. Much has been made of the different paths Damon and Affleck took as actors. Ben Affleck reveled in every minute of his newfound status, gambling, drinking, dating beautiful women, engaging in the fabulously OTT Armageddon. Conversely, Damon put his head down, took every opportunity to work on arty fare and engage in monogamous lower-key romances. Despite his film choices flailing at the box office, Matty was viewed as the "smart and sensible" one while Ben became the classic Hollywood cautionary tale. It wasn't until Affleck married Jennifer Garner that his trashed rep rose like a chiseled Phoenix. But my Comment isn't about the separate journeys these two talents chose, nor is it about they way in which the media feasted on Affleck. It is really about the way in which we all did so. Why do we as a culture have such a hard time seeing someone truly enjoy their (hard-earned) success? We approve of Matt's quiet and discerning lifestyle and let the blood run down our fangs when Gigli elicits laughs from eight-year-olds during its previews. When we get old we cluck our tongues at our children and tell them that youth is wasted on the young. But we don't want to see any seedling actually enjoying that youth. Perhaps we are, as the French so often complain, Puritanical hypocrites. But really, fuck them, they're French.