Most people would probably look at the story of Mark Whitacre, the Archer Daniels Midland executive who donned a wire for the FBI in the early ’90s and became the most famous (and highest ranking) corporate whistleblower in history, and see it as a tragedy. Between what it has to say about willful corporate corruption as well as about the ravages of mental illness, a film treatment of Whitacre’s story could have easily been a dark and sobering look into international conspiracy and one man’s precipitous downfall. But Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns looked at the story, as told in Kurt Eichenwald’s bestselling book, and decided it was a laugh-out-loud comedy. Though they did keep the “dark” intact.

From the very first title card, Soderbergh announces The Informant! as a cheeky venture, segueing from there to an opening credit sequence featuring languorous tracking shots of surveillance equipment, accompanied by a Marvin Hamlisch score that recalls the cheesiest film soundtracks of the 1970s and early ’80s. Mere seconds into the film, without a single line of dialog spoken or any actual action onscreen, and already Soderbergh scores a belly-laugh with this musical joke.

By the time Matt Damon first appears onscreen, he doesn’t have to say anything to elicit a laugh, decked out in the most tragic, colorful ties and ill-fitting suits 1991 had to offer, an unfortunate ’80s-holdover porn-star mustache, 30 extra pounds of paunch, and a fluffy, feathered hairpiece that might upstage the actor on its own if he weren’t so utterly brilliant in the role.