Informant!

The Ocean's franchise has been profitable fun for its team of star Hollywood talents. Three of them got together again for The Informant!, directed by Steven Soderbergh, co-exec-produced by George Clooney, with its title role filled by Matt Damon. To ensure that moviegoers didn't take the tale of a pathological liar too seriously, the exclamation mark is one clue. Another is the deliberately corny and loud musical score by three-time Oscar-winner Marvin Hamlisch.

As with Catch Me If You Can, the movie is based on a book telling a hard-to-credit real life story. Mark Whitacre (pronounced Whitaker, providing the earliest hint of false pretences) was a biochemist with ADM, a leading player in the American agri-business. For reasons that aren't explained till the end of the movie, he decided to become an undercover whistle-blower for the FBI. For more than two years, he helped government agents record 200 tapes, proving eventually that the company was running a price-fixing cartel with its Japanese and European rivals.

Damon, plumped up and demeaned by a mini walrus moustache, skips along an actor's tightrope. His character is a buffoon and a braggart, naive and quick-witted, a loving husband and uncontrollable liar, and Damon almost succeeds in reconciling all the contradictory aspects of a suburban Mitty-like man. The crucial con trick pulled on the audience is the liar's comically disjointed off-screen comments and asides.

On the way to the comeuppances for ADM and Whitacre, the anti-hero also conned his colleagues, FBI and Justice Department handlers, and lawyers. The role of his cutely coy wife, and the level of her knowledge of his deceptions, is never made clear, and one can guess why.

The trusting natures of everyone else, even the corporate crooks, provides comic delights and a sly satire on American society. Cameo gems sparkle modestly, and Scott Pakula underplays the collaborative lead FBI agent neatly, letting short-bodied Damon dominate every scene.

An entertainment that laughs at itself, the movie - and its star - was inevitably under-appreciated. It collected a good stack of nominations and no awards. It should have been nominated for the comedy Golden Globe, because The Informant! is truly golden compared to the dross of the award-winning Hangover.