Review - The Informers

Studio/Production Company: Senator Entertainment
Director: Gregor Jordan
Written by: Bret Easton Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki
Rating: Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, drug use, pervasive language and some disturbing images.
Release Date: April 24, 2009
Genre: Drama
Strong Points: Captures the atmosphere of the 80s exceedingly well; some very strong performances from the cast; excellent cinematography and editing; strong script
Weak Points: Fractured feel, largely in part to unresolved plot; depravity of characters and plot can feel oppressive; characterizations tend to feel one-dimensional
Technical Score: B
Artistic Score: A
Final Score (not an average): C+
Moral Warnings: Sex and drugs permeate the film; profanity is heavily used throughout the film, including blasphemy; male and female nudity occurs frequently; some violence is featured, but not heavily.

In the late-80s, author Bret Easton Ellis came onto the scene with “Less than Zero,” a nihilistic take on youth, drugs and sex in Los Angeles, circa the mid-1980s. A film, starring Robert Downey, Jr., and Brat-Packers Jami Gertz and Andrew McCarthy followed, and was the first of several Easton Ellis adaptations. Later projects included “American Psycho,” a novel and film about facades and insanity in the yuppie crowd (and starring Christian Bale in an amazing, chilling role), and “The Rules of Attraction,” a novel and film about drugs, sex and debauchery in the 1980s college crowd.

In that way, “The Informers” is no different an adaptation than any of those previous; it deals with drugs, sex and a nihilistic group of people in the early 1980s, and follows them for a short period of time. All of the characters are connected in some way, through theme, chance encounter or sexual partner. Sometimes it’s a mix of all three. At other times, the connections are harder to make.

Like any ensemble piece, “The Informers” relies heavily on the strength of its players. Strong performances from Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger, and Billy Bob Thornton lead the way, but those actors never turn anything surprising in. They simply provide a solid backbone for the story to rest on, backstory and context when it’s needed. Oddly enough, these are also some of the most fascinating characters in the film, which isn’t saying much when the vast majority of the characters are portrayed as one- and two-dimensional addicts with no life and no remorse for their despicable actions.

Brad Renfro, in his final role (he died in early 2008 from a heroine overdose), appears as Jack, a young, struggling actor who lives in a dump and without confidence, and is dealing with his uncle Peter (Mickey Rourke) taking advantage of him and doing things that are not strictly legal. Graham (Jon Foster) is the son of William (Billy Bob Thornton), and is a rich kid who deals drugs on the side, lives with his girlfriend Christie (Amber Heard) and occasionally his best friend Martin (Austin Nichols), a music video director who leads a particularly hedonistic lifestyle. One of their friends, Tim (Lou Taylor Pucci), recently went on vacation with his alcoholic father Les (Chris Isaak), who thinks his son might be gay. On top of all of this, pop star Bryan Metro (Mel Raido) is dealing with a heavy drug addiction, a pressing tour schedule and a host of other problems.

None of these characters are particularly likable. None of the characters are necessarily engaging. Part of the appeal of “The Informers” is that fact, that the characters both repulse and compel. This is the stuff of soap opera tragedy, a story that feels almost tragicomic in its melodrama. And comical it would be if the subject matter weren’t so dark. Easton Ellis has long been a satirist in his novels. “American Psycho” dealt heavily with that, featuring a man whose answer to his own inhumanity and insensitivity was to kill, and kill brutally. In that film, Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman murders both colleagues and prostitutes while commenting on popular music in a very nonchalant fashion. Here however, the destruction on display is of the personal kind and finds itself in even less comical territory than “American Psycho” ever did. Characters often wake up in bisexual threesomes, or find themselves unable to relate to another because of their inability to relate to themselves. There is no redemption here, and maybe none is wanted.

Themes of love and death juxtaposed run through the film, though one has to wonder: Do any of the characters actually care? When we reach certainty about love, certainty about death, at least for one of the characters on display here, it’s almost too late. Those with answers are given no screen time; those without them do what they want and then bemoan their misfortune when the world crashes around them. It seems in some ways that we, as the audience, are almost expected to judge the characters presented here, to analyze and condemn them while the film coldly displays their actions.

Perhaps the best thing about “The Informers” is how well it captures that quintessential 80s vibe. Everything, from costume design to art direction to music selection, is dead on, often betraying a real affection for the era. Nostalgia does permeate the film, but so does anger and sadness and a feeling of being directionless. Morality is a grey area here and sex is thrown around as a commodity, just like the drugs.

Nudity abounds in “The Informers,” with at least one major character’s breasts exposed for the majority of her scenes. Full frontal nudity is shown several times, including both male and female, though not often in focus. At least one graphic sex scene is on display, and one character is heavily bisexual, sleeping with more than one character and making no secret of it. Drug use runs rampant, from cocaine to pot to what seems like heroine. One character kidnaps a child with the intent to sell him. Another punches a woman in the face after she propositions him sexually. At the beginning of the film, a character is hit by a car; blood is everywhere from the act. Incidental blood is shown from cuts on the hands to two major characters. Profanity is everywhere, with most words in the book used. Blasphemy is used, but not prevalent.

None of this is to say that “The Informers” is not interesting, or that it’s a bad film. It’s well made and holds a sort of morbid fascination for the viewer. But when all the sex, drugs and glamour fade away, we find that most of the characters have not progressed, and those that have are not necessarily better for it. The ones that haven’t feel like lost causes, their faces spattered with blood or their noses powdered with cocaine. They haven’t learned a thing from their experiences, and maybe neither have we. Either way, “The Informers” is what it is: An intriguing, albeit vile, character study, drenched in sexual and moral ambiguity. It is a film that is both hard to watch and hard to stomach, and one that I’m not sure needed to be made.

Drew Regensburger (drew@revolve21.com)