Marvin Hamlisch’s soundtrack to The Informant!, Steven Soderbergh dark comedy thriller based on the book by journalist Kurt Eichenwald and starring Matt Damon, tells the true story of Mark Whitacre, the highest ranked corporate whistleblower in US legal history...

For me, personally, The Informant! is not a soundtrack I'd want to dig out and listen to very often, if at all. While the opening track 'The Informant' is well composed and sounds like a good solid classically scored piece, the rest of the music on this CD dips its toes into the genre of lounge music.

The most twee track, 'The Raid', has a 'Mahna Mahna' flavour to it which has a charm of it's own, but becomes very annoying very quickly - mainly due to the kazoo being used as one of the main instruments. 'Polygraph' has a hoedown slant to it - but again is just too twee to be listened to more than once.

'Boxes' is another interesting classically scored track, but is really just a reworking of 'The Informant' track.

If I had to chose which was my favourite track on this album, it would easily have to be 'Triplets'. It's probably the only track that isn't too twee to be listened to in public.

As an accompaniment to the movie, I'm sure the music works well, but as a stand alone album there are much better lounge collections out there should you feel the need to set a cheesy mood. There's a good collection of Ultra Lounge CDs that are well worth picking up if you like that sort of thing.

3

Darren Rea