When Good Will Hunting put Matt Damon and Ben Affleck on the map in 1997, my friend Debbie and I made a pact that, should we ever find ourselves in the, um, highly likely situation where we'd each have to choose one member of the Academy Award®-winning duo to date and/or marry, she would pick Matt and I would pick Ben. I'm not sure our friendship would still be going strong these twelve years later if we had disagreed over that challenging, yet entirely fictitious, decision.
However, that's not to say that I haven't ever wondered if I picked the wrong half of the bromantic couple from Boston. (Who cares if all parties? This is a deep philosophical question worth dissecting!) Damon's hardly made a misstep in his career and has pulled off a wide range of characters across many genres. You've got your Talented Mr. Ripley, your Oceans movies, your Bourne franchise, your Departed… and for Ben you have your Jersey Girl, your Daredevil, and your Gigli among many other forgettable titles. D'oh! Perhaps my friend Debbie missed her calling as a talent scout.
Before anyone jumps on me for not giving Affleck enough credit, let me say that he has certainly been in some respectable roles over the past decade and has also successfully branched out into directing with Gone, Baby, Gone. But no one can deny that his buddy Matt has emerged as the more bankable, dependable movie star.
Now they both have films opening in September: Ben's in the Mike Judge comedy Extract, and Damon's in Steven Soderbergh's dark comedy/thriller The Informant!
When I saw the trailer for The Informant!, all I could think was, "Wow, Soderbergh really took a unique angle with this story." I won't spoil anything for those of you unfamiliar with journalist Kurt Eichenwald's nonfiction book about one of the largest price-fixing schemes of all time (upon which this film is based), but it's about much more than what the clips below let on (which is a good thing — I know we all hate it when previews give away key plot points, right?).
Kinda strange, huh? I'm getting a bizarre Burn After Reading mixed with The Beastie Boys' Sabotage video type of vibe (not to mention the 40-Year-Old Virgin vibe from The Informant!'s poster). But I do think Soderbergh was wise for choosing to go this route with the story — I don't imagine droves of people would head to the theater for a humorless drama about food-additive pricing scams. And kudos to Damon for embracing his inner schlub and gaining thirty pounds for his role as whistle-blowing executive Mark Whitacre. Ben seems to also be learning that he needs to suffer a bit for his craft as he's looking kinda unkempt in the Extract trailer.
Hopefully both of the guys have already returned to form now that production has wrapped — because, you know, if either Debbie or I run into them, we'd get really depressed if our alternate-universe husbands had let themselves go.
Posted on July 7, 2009 at 1:39 pm
NICE! I saw both Joel McHale and Buster Bluth in the trailer.
It looks entertaining. I’d probably see it based on that trailer.