MOVIE REVIEW
The Informers (2009)
2009 Sundance Film Festival
“The Informers,” Bret Easton Ellis’s adaptation of his own series of short stories about the greed and decadence of 1980s' Los Angeles, plays like a rote museum piece evocation of the era. Director Gregor Jordan brings a sense of verisimilitude to his depiction, with pitch perfect hairstyles, wardrobes and me-first, cocaine-snorting snob attitudes on display. But he can’t compensate for a ludicrously concocted, thoroughly unconvincing narrative and the pervading sense of style supplanting substance.
The film co-opts the age-old interwoven storyline structure, but – despite introducing character after character – forgets to give us a single individual worth caring about. Billy Bob Thornton plays William, a TV executive married to Laura (Kim Basinger) but pining for Cheryl (Winona Ryder). Some blond, faceless characters interact in bland, faux yuppie chic settings. Amber Heard spends the entire movie sans a top, and Mickey Rourke creepily kidnaps a child. None of this says much about Los Angeles during the period or the corrupt commercialism of the decade and never for one minute is any of it believable.
Messrs. Jordan and Ellis render the film with an unabashedly nihilistic spirit that grows tiresome quickly, with heaps of senseless perversity crammed in for shock value. The actors do nothing with their characters, but they’ve all walked into a pretty hopeless situation. As scripted, none of the lives on display amount to anything of significance, and the world they inhabit more closely resembles an imagined, romanticized vision of the gritty period than its actual reality. Just about every frame of “The Informers” has been so crammed with carefully considered detail meant to remind the audience that the movie’s set during the 1980s that the picture completely loses touch with any sort of genuine feeling. It’s hard to believe new company Senator Entertainment chose this as its first theatrical release.
THE INFORMERS
Opens on April 24 in New York.
Directed by Gregor Jordan; written by Bret Easton Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki, based on the novel by Mr. Ellis; director of photography, Petra Korner; edited by Robert Brakey; music by Christopher Young; production designer, Cecilia Montiel; produced by Marco Weber; released by Senator Distribution. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. This film is rated R.
WITH: Billy Bob Thornton (William Sloan), Kim Basinger (Laura Sloan), Mickey Rourke (Peter), Winona Ryder (Cheryl Moore), Jon Foster (Graham Sloan), Amber Heard (Christie), Chris Isaak (Les Price), Lou Taylor Pucci (Tim Price), Rhys Ifans (Roger) and Brad Renfro (Jack).
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