Ever notice how exclamation points make everything better? They add genuine excitement to a greeting, extra terror to a death threat, a guarantee of an easy “A” to the title of a Cornell class. Steven Soderbergh’s newest film, The Informant! is no exception.

Before any description of plot or character can commence, credit must be given to Steven Soderbergh. He has filmed everything from ensemble cast hyperlink films (Traffic) to low-budget indie sensations (Sex, Lies, and Videotape) to heist capers (Ocean’s Eleven), star vehicles (Erin Brockovich) to 40’s noir-throwbacks (The Good German) to two-part biopic war epics (Che). Now he’s spoofing corporate thrillers like Michael Clayton and The Insider. Who spoofs corporate thrillers? And not in the Scary Movie or Airplane! vein, although the exclamation point might suggest otherwise. Soderbergh can’t be held down by a style of film. All one can expect is earnest intelligence and an end result that celebrates the art of filmmaking that’s both esoteric and super-fun.

As to the film itself, it chronicles the true story of the rise and fall of Mark Whitacre (the always excellent Matt Damon, here 30 pounds heavier and hopefully in Oscar-nod territory), a mid-level vice president at a bioproducts company called Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). He has a young son and pretty wife, played by Melanie Lynskey and a decent-sized suburban property with a few too many curious sports cars and stables under construction. He holds biological engineering degrees from Ohio State and Cornell, claims to have been raised by a wealthy man after his parents died when he was young and now enjoys the pleasures and pressures of the corporate environment.

Until the pressure gets to be a bit much, and top-level ADM execs want to know why production of an enzyme called lysine (yes, the same one from Jurassic Park) is on the fritz. How does Whitacre respond? By concocting a story of corporate espionage. How does ADM counter-respond? By involving the FBI. Drat. What does Whitacre do? He exposes ADM in a massive conspiracy involving fixing the price of lysine with Japanese competitors. And who does the FBI select to be the highest-level corporate mole in history. Mark Whitacre! The Informant!

Of course, without giving too much away, Whitacre may or may not be playing both sides. He wants his lysine cake and he wants to eat his share of the corporate pie chart, too. He really thinks he can climb the ladder while simultaneously sawing off the rungs one at a time. It’s all very confusing at first, especially with Whitacre’s internal monologue drowning out the external dialogue all the time. Who do we trust? Mark? Mark’s head? ADM? The FBI? Again, without giving away too much, let’s say Whitacre becomes the second most embarrassing Cornellian to hit the screen since Andy Bernard. Don’t worry, an Ann Coulter ’84 biopic must be coming, right?

But it’s Soderbergh, and desite the dark, dark comedy of manners taking place, there are many subtle scene-stealing performances from veteran character actors woven between the plot twsts. Scott Bakula (TV’s Star Trek: Enterprise) rocks as sympathetic FBI agent Brian Shepard. Patton Oswalt is a lead prosecutor who shows up late in the game to wrench up the gears. Honorable mentions go to the bit parts played by veterans Clancy Brown (Starship Troopers, Highlander) and Thomas F. Wilson (Back to the Future) as oily ADM gophers. And Matt Damon takes the prize as a surprising master of deadpan humor, a mastermind extraordinaire, con artist, loudmouth whistleblower and complex character with a sympathetic streak, even until the movie’s painful last reel. You hate him and love him and hate yourself for loving him so much. It’s how the real Whitacre got away with it all.

Here we have another nod to Soderbergh’s directing eye: no French New Wave jump cuts or shaky cam. Everything is shot cleanly, with a sense of vibrant color. There are a lot of close-ups of Damon’s face, and that mustache is the focal point every time. And it’s awesome. Most effective is the combination of diegesis (the stuff the audience can hear but the characters can’t) in the film. Mark Whitacre narrates a good deal of the time, and sometimes he’ll spill into a monologue of the most bizarre anecdotes or cocktail party filler just as he tunes out a key player filling him (and what would have been the audience) in on the actual situational details at hand. It’s a great way to build dramatic irony, introduce the great narrative tool of distracting the audience (because his spiel on everything from polar bears to comments about ties before sudden death to … oh, just watch and listen, it’s too entertaining to spoil) and eventually reveal Whitacre’s thought process. Watch out for the key scene when the internal chatterbox stops. The silence is, cliché aside, completely deafening.

The film better win an Oscar for the other diegetic element: the music. It’s a perky blend of elevator music, the Muppet Show theme and 1950s commercial jingle, with a pinch of the background music to the employee training tapes at Applebee’s, and the perfectly timed little triangle cues makes Whitacre’s entire adventure seem that much more comical.

Too much has been said already. Too much information leaked. Bottom line: See this film. Exclamation point.