Rating: NR

Genre: Documentary

Release: 2013

Duration: 80

How does a leftist firebrand end up a Tea Party darling?

Informant is a fascinating psychological portrait of Brandon Darby, a radical activist turned FBI informant who has been alternately vilified and deified. In 2005, Darby became an overnight hero when he traveled to Katrina-devastated New Orleans and braved toxic floodwaters to rescue a friend stranded in the Ninth Ward. Soon after, he co-founded Common Ground, a successful grassroots relief organization. But over the next few years, he began hiding a shocking secret...

After two young protestors were arrested at the 2008 Republican National Convention, Darby revealed he had been instrumental in the indictment as an FBI informant. As David Hanners of St. Paul Pioneer Press summarizes, “When you interview people about Brandon Darby, you realize that everyone has a different idea of who he is.”

The only film with access to Darby since his public confession, Informant meticulously constructs a picture of his life — before and after the death threats — through interviews and tense reenactments starring the man himself. Darby’s version of events is accompanied and often contradicted by evidence from acquaintances and expert commentators on various points along the political spectrum, posing complicated questions about trust and the nature of reality.