A film review by Craig J. Koban September 15, 2009 |
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THE INFORMERS
William: Billy Bob Thornton / Laura: Kim Basinger / Peter: Mickey
Rourke / Cheryl: Winona Ryder / Graham: Jon Foster / Christie:
Amber Heard / Tim: Lou Taylor Pucci / Jack: Brad Renfro / Les:
Chris Isaak |
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"If misery loves company, misery has company enough." Henry David Thoreau
So…s-p-o-i-l-e-r
w-a-r-n-i-n-g. At the
end of the film we have a scene with the only scintilla of dramatic punch:
we see what was once a luscious, sexy, blond hedonistic bombshell named
Christine (Amber Heard), who spent much of her time in the film cavorting
around and having sex with...well...just about everyone.
She is shown as the dreamlike epitome of the California angel that
every 1983 man hungers for. By the end of the film she
has shockingly hit rock bottom; she is lying on a beach, pale as a ghost,
covered with lesions, and is barely able to move or to emote herself.
When her drug dealing boyfriend, Graham (Jon Foster) comes to check
in on her he then decides that he must promptly take her to the
hospital. She steadfastly refuses, insisting that she is relatively
fine and that she must remain on the beach to catch some more rays to get
“some color” back into her emaciated complexion. This
single moment has a real, stirring power.
It is also the only single moment in THE INFORMERS that
moved me in one way or another. To
see this unreservedly spoiled, egotistical, narrow minded, naïve, and
perpetually stoned bimbo go from goddess to AIDS-afflicted victim is
certainly depressing, if more than a bit frustrating. In some ways, seeing her - with her whole future in front of
her - have her life utterly squandered due to a deadly disease (virtually
misunderstood at the time) all because of petty and blind-sided lifestyle
choices is dreadful and disheartening.
Yet, in the end, this is such an wholly self-absorbed individual
that you almost want to whisper at the screen, “She had it coming.” The
rest of THE INFORMERS cannot live up to the dramatic wallop of its brief
final scene. In some manners,
the concluding scene also reinforces the film’s bleak and monumentally
nihilistic tone: I have
arguably never seen a film about such aggressively immoral, unhappy,
reckless, and pathetic people in my movie-going life.
There is not one persona in this film that is amiable, per se, as
most of them are basically superficial, bleak and pitiful a-holes that try
to carve out lives for themselves in Los Angeles during the early
1980’s. There is no hope
for any of these misanthropic individuals – whether they take the form
of rock stars, wanna-be actors, newswomen, movie executives, child
kidnappers, and, yes, blonde bimbos; there is rarely a second where you
have even a modest level of vested interest in any of them.
These people are just beyond are understanding and sympathy, but that
is not to say that depressing movies are instantly wretched:
some of the finest and most memorable films of all-time have concerned
morally challenged characters. Yet,
THE INFORMERS does such a limp-wristed and haphazard job at developing
them and offers up such insidiously low insights into what makes them all
tick that, by the time the end credits role on, you feel jubilant because
the whole sordid ordeal is over. It's
just a soul-sucking and miserable film about human misery...and it
made me
miserable. What’s
most damning here is that the screenplay is by Bret Easton Ellis, based on
his series of seven short stories that was inevitably collected as a whole
in 1994. There are certainly
scant elements here of Ellis' trademark scathing wit and menacing
observation of damaged human souls that have permeated past films based on
his other works (like LESS THAN ZERO, RULES OF ATTRACTION, and, to the
best effect, 2000’s AMERICAN PSYCHO,
still one of the best satires about yuppie greed and social excess I’ve
seen, cast in the guise of a serial killer flick).
THE INFORMERS is easily the most gloomy of the lot in the manner it
chronicles a series of interconnected stories of Los Angelinos that are
not just ruthless bottom-feeders…they lick the bottom of the barrel
until it's dry.
The whole connective tissue of all of these divergent characters is
in their deplorable lack of decorum, self-respect, and carelessness: these
people have all the time in the world to eat, drink, do all kinds of
drugs, and have sex with multiple partners (often at the same time) all
while not only being unfaithful to the loved ones around them, but to
themselves as well. As sad as
this deplorable portrait is in the film, what’s ultimately even more
scandalous is Ellis’ lack of tact and wiliness with the script: THE
INFORMERS is just a dull and tedious bore. The
film is simply too short to give its ten or so prominent characters any
tangible development. Instead,
all we get is quick and hastily cobbled together glimpses into them.
Some interconnect in more personal ways than others, but most of
them, ultimately, are all hopeless lost.
We have the aforementioned Graham (Foster, who looks like a pouty,
poor man’s Patrick Bateman here), who deals drugs and sleeps with
Christine (Heard, the only attractive visual in this film) as well as with his best male buddy, Martin (Austin
Nichols). Graham’s dad, a
Hollywood-producing kingpin named William (Billy Bob Thornton, who has
never been stiffer and more comatose in a role), is trying to rekindle his
love with his semi-estranged wife, Laura (Kim Basinger, barely a blip on
this film’s radar). The
problem is that William still lusts for younger and attractive news anchor
named Cheryl (in a curiously brief performance by Winona Ryder, hardly in
the film longer than a collective two or three minutes).
Graham’s father clearly has issues, but so does his other friend,
Tim (Lou Taylor Pucci) who is on a very peculiar and socially awkward
vacation in Hawaii with his dad, Les (a slimy Chris Isaac).
Combined with all of these stories within the film are ones
involving a glam rocker (Mel Raido) who is so stoned and dunk out of his
tree that he can barely perform on stage and the other (and perhaps the
most scandalous, but involving) revolves around a troubled young man (Brad
Renfro, in his last film role) and his drifter uncle (Mickey Rourke,
fairly decent here) as a slimeball that kidnaps kids for large ransoms.
Perhaps the darkest and most ironic footnote to THE INFORMERS is
that it involves many characters that are drug addicts and Renfro himself
tragically died due to a heroine overdose.
Sad indeed, seeing as Renfro gives the film’s most textured
performance as a man deeply uncomfortable within his own skin. Actually,
Renfro is not the only bright performance spot in the film: Kim Basinger,
despite slumming around in a deeply marginalized and underwritten role,
has a truly fine moment of traumatized pain and resentment against her
adulterous husband later on (it’s just demoralizing to see Thornton fail
to inject any life into his role; he looks positively bored out of his
mind). Rourke is effortlessly
creepy here as well as a monstrous human trafficker.
Yet, the rest of the performances are frighteningly bland and wooden.
Jon Foster in particular arguably has the largest role in the film,
but the actor never carves out a memorable niche for his role.
And as for Amber Heard, perhaps the best choice she makes is that
she does not have much dialogue and that she appears naked throughout
three-quarters of her scenes. She
is rarely a bad sight in the film, even though her character is
sour and unpleasant. If the
acting was not stillborn enough, then perhaps what’s worse here is how
horribly the typically assured Ellis is at connecting all of these
characters and stories together to make a cohesive whole.
None of the stories feels remotely connected at all, and
considering that the film was going for the same interconnectivity vibe of
a BABEL and CRASH
it grows apparent very quickly that it is not remotely in the same
auspicious league. At a
little over 90 minutes, there’s just no way that Ellis could shape these
tragically flawed people into characters that sustain even our minimal
interest. He also excised an
apparent vampire character (no fooling) from his source material as well,
which seems foolhardy especially if one understands the resurgence in
popularity that bloodsuckers in general are seeing in movies and TV.
Let’s put it this way: the film could not have been any worse
with the inclusion of a vampire character. There
are two other abysmal things about THE INFORMERS:
Firstly, the period detail here (to take a catchphrase
from the decade) is like sooooo totally lacking.
Yes, we have the obligatory haircuts, clothes, the odd pop tunes
blaring on the soundtrack, and so forth, but there is rarely a moment
where the film feels of its time; it just comes off as artificial
as its characters. Secondly,
what in the hell is THE INFORMERS trying to say and what tone is it really
aiming for? I have
no doubt that Ellis was trying for satire (much as he did to
rousing success in AMERICAN PSYCHO), but his attempts here lack any sort
of incisive bite. The
“heart” of the film (if I could day that) would be to paint a desolate
portrait of the barren, disheartened, and redemptive-free landscape of
these Californians at a time typified by greed, lust, and all forms of
excess. However, since the
film is so bankrupt in terms of capturing the look of the times, not to
mention having virtually nothing of real value to say about these
characters and the worlds they inhabit, most of THE INFORMERS comes off as
some sort of perverse and wrongheaded farce and an exaggerated prerogative
of the decade. If the film
embraced its satiric leanings more fully, then it certainly would have
provided for more scathing commentary at the social hypocrisies of its
time. No dice, seeing as it
just flounders in human unpleasantness. At least the film’s final scene had evidence of highlighting the deathly consequences of one of the character’s unwholesome life choices. Beyond that, THE INFORMERS is superficially about shared doom and nothing more, which is what makes it the ultimate cure for insomnia. That, and its cheap and plodding soap opera-esque storyline about promiscuous Tinseltown sex, drugs, rock 'n roll…and then more of the same…has nothing genuine to contribute to viewers that has not been commented on by so many previous better films. It’s just a horrible film about horrible people that made me feel horrible inside and its ending gave me the only satisfied relief. |
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