The Informers
2008-09
Death is almost always a tragedy. The death of a 25-year-old is beyond
tragic. But there is a silver lining in the cloud which surrounded the
heroin overdose of Brad Renfro.
He never lived to see himself in this film.
It's not just that he looked 40 and bloated, although that would have
been enough to cause him some significant suffering, but the real pain
would have come when he came down from his heroin high for some rare
moments of clarity, at which time he would have found himself watching
this with his friends and would have thought, "What am I doing in
this place? What
is this movie I'm watching? God it sucks. Holy shit. That's me up there. I'm in this suckfest."
From the "cream of the crop" critics summarized at Rotten Tomatoes,
there is precisely one positive review, and several of those reviews gave
the film the lowest possible score.
And they must have been in a generous mood.
The Informers is based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, who also
co-wrote the screenplay. I haven't read that book and, on the assumption
that it might resemble this movie, however vaguely, I never will.
Here's what the film is about: some assholes in L.A. do some stuff.
Then some other assholes do some other unrelated stuff. There are some
vague connections between the segments. The end.
There's no point, other than that life has no point, and there isn't any humor, black or otherwise,
to assist in establishing that point. There isn't much of a plot,
either.
Although the film is supposed to take place in the 1980s, the period detail is
almost non-existent except for the obligatory Reagan TV appearances and
the fact that people are just discovering AIDS. Although many top actors
are in the cast, most of the "acting" consists of delivering lines in a
hollow voice while looking off into the middle distance and trying to pose
profoundly, as if in an SCTV parody of a Bergman movie.
Few of the characters have any kind of arc. Not that you would care
about those characters, for they are all despicable or pathetic, without exception,
and they are all bored with life.
Some of them are merely pathetic, spoiled, contemptuous and pretentious,
and are therefore less reprehensible than the ones who kidnap children or
seek sex with minors.
But for our purposes there is something far worse than the fact that
the characters are bored.
They are boring.
The scoreboard;
- Rotten Tomatoes: 15% positive
- Rotten Tomatoes top critics: 5% positive (exactly one positive review
- from the S.F. Chronicle, if it matters)
- Metacritic: 20/100
- Ebert: 2.5/4
- Berardinelli: 1.5/4
- Box office: a megabomb. It opened in 482 theaters and did so poorly
that it only lasted three days. Total gross: $30,000.
- IMDb: 7.6 (???? What's up with that? It should be around 5, give
or take. Possibly lower. I rated it much lower than that.)
Nudity?
Yes, that it has. Amber Heard's body is the film's only redeeming element!
Nudity from Amber Heard. (And toplessness from another chick in a foursome
with Amber.)
A full frontal from the chick in bed with the jaded rock star.
There is also full frontal and rear male nudity.
