The Informant! (15)

ALWAYS a joy when Hollywood royalty decides to "go ugly" for a film.

Because it's the most naked play for awards that you ever did see.

I mean, come ON, judges. If these people can get the audience behind them DESPITE looking like a wildebeest's backside then they must deserve some kind of statue, right?

Saddest thing is, it often works. The best example ever was Charlize Theron's serial killer who had been run over by the Ugly Jeep in Monster (one Oscar and one Bafta, thank you very much).

Then there was also Cameron Diaz's frizzy- haired weirdo in Being John Malkovich (one Bafta nom and American Comedy Award glory) and Salma Hayek's mono-browed art frump in Frida (one Oscar and Bafta nom apiece).

As with everything else, it's harder for blokes. But Matt Damon is having a crack in his new based-on-a-true-story "dark corporate espionage comedy" The Informant!

Which has an exclamation mark on the end of the title so you know it's Really Wacky!

It's been a while since Damon's had to do anything too far removed from his chiselled action-hero act. So full credit to the man here. He's piled on a couple of stone and glued a cr*p moustache to his face with aplomb.

Matt's totally convincing as clueless, bumbling, wide-eyed corporate golden boy Mark Whitacre. Forget the Bourne Identity - this guy was Bourne Yesterday.

Despite being a rising star in the corn-syrup business, Whitacre goes to the FBI to report a price-fixing scam involving his firm.

Special agents Joel McHale and Quantum Leap's Scott Bakula take on the case but struggle to keep up with Whitacre's wacko behaviour.

He fiddles with taping devices during key meetings, changes his story every five minutes, yaks about random magazine articles he's read, and generally acts the chump. In fact, he seems to be deliberately wrecking his own investigation. So what's he really up to?

That's the question you'll be asking yourself all the way through. And when the answer finally comes (or at least, the next best thing to an answer), it's a monumental let-down.

Director Stephen Soderbergh (the man behind the Ocean's 11 films) plays the whole tale for laughs - even the soundtrack's more sugary than a jam doughnut. But at the end, we find out this isn't a very funny story after all.

So after 1½ hours of ker-azee chuckles, you get one big clunker of a climax tossed in your lap. At the moment Whitacre needs your sympathy, you won't be in any mood to give it to him.

And you're left with a movie that's pulling in two very different - and totally mismatched - directions.

Like I said, The Informant! is based on a true story. Journalist Kurt Eichenwald recorded Whitacre's story in a book called The Informant.

You see that, Matt and Steve? No exclamation mark. There's your clue that the damn thing shouldn't have been treated like a comedy.

You! Pair! Of! Plonkers!

OUT FRIDAY

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