Matt Damon steals the show in ‘The Informant!’

Though it uses a timely topic for fodder, “The Informant!” fails to inform. It does, however, entertain.

That’s thanks to a droll lead performance by an unflinching Matt Damon. An able supporting cast and some other clever style choices by big-time director Steven Soderbergh (“Traffic,” the “Oceans” franchise) also contribute. But in the end, an incompatibly satiric tone and lack of substantive context make this a flippant and hollow black comedy that only trifles with the ongoing scourge of corporate corruption and government’s bumbling response to it.

With a script played for laughs by Scott Z. Burns, based on the nonfiction book “The Informant (A True Story)” by journalist Kurt Eichenwald, it specifically concerns the actual 1990s international price-fixing scandal surrounding agribusiness powerhouse Archer Daniels Midland. The story is told from the point of view of a strangely charming figure, whistle-blowing ADM vice president Mark Whitacre (Damon). When two FBI special agents (Scott Bakula and “The Soup’s” Joel McHale) enlist the happy-go-lucky Mark as their insider mole for a two-year investigation, they have no idea that he is a delusional bipolar nutcase and compulsive liar who lacks an understanding of the difference between right and wrong.

As Mark wears a wire to entrap ADM co-conspirators and his Stepford wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey) blindly supports him, he is simultaneously embezzling millions through kickbacks. Set against Midwestern Gothic atmospherics, neither the shamelessly corrupt bosses Mark exposes nor government officials have a clue about him.

It’s an amusing premise. And there are some outrageous moments of irony to be experienced here — punctuated by a bouncy, mocking score from hokey music impresario Marvin Hamlisch (“The Sting,” “The Way We Were”). Most of the humor comes from Damon’s pudgy, mustachioed white-collar weirdo. It is a unique, complicated and brilliant creation to behold. The actor deserves to get an Oscar nomination for this radical departure from his Bourne identity.

But maybe his “Informant!” would have seemed funnier, better some other week. This week we are commemorating the collapse of Lehman Brothers — the one-year anniversary of the start of a recession that has seen housing and retirement account values slashed, unemployment rates explode and direct financial pain to millions.

This well-made comedy only has fun with a company allegedly still contributing to soaring prices and plummeting quality in a scarce food supply. It shuns the real, devastating effects of greed and failed institutions.