MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Informers'

Slightly longer version of a review in today's Oregonian....

Let's suppose you decide to film a Bret Easton Ellis book. Let's suppose it's an overlapping series of short stories about vapid, drug-abusing narcissists in '80s California -- with a satirical edge provided by the narcissists crossing paths with literal, supernatural vampires (or at least characters who believe themselves to be vampires; it's ambiguous).

But then you decide to completely remove the vampires from the script. What's left?

Incredibly, this is what director Gregor Jordan ("Buffalo Soldiers") has done to Ellis' "The Informers." Mr. Ellis apparently co-wrote a longer, more freewheeling version of the screenplay that included undead bloodsuckers (or people who fancied themselves thus), and the author hasn't exactly come out swinging for what ended up onscreen: an excruciating, grim, open-ended study in smooth surfaces, skin and 25-year-old pop-culture references. (I have seldom read a more ambivalent movie-promo Q&A than the one Ellis just did with The AV Club.)

The opening scene -- a pool-party-cum-music-video that ends in violence -- suggests Jordan might be trying for a deadpan moral satire. But the film never recaptures that initial shock, and spends most of its time falling in love with its own reflection.

An ensemble cast (including Kim Basinger, Billy Bob Thornton, Mickey Rourke, Chris Isaak and the late Brad Renfro) speaks in relentless shallow-isms -- attempting to underscore (often through Ray-Bans) profound thematic insights about the dangers of reckless hedonism and living without a moral compass. (Spoiler alert: It can leave you feeling kind of empty and sad!) It's pretty, icky and boring all at once, and feels like nothing so much as an unusually depressing Bain de Soleil commercial.
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D; 98 minutes; rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, drug use, pervasive language and some disturbing images. Playing in Portland at the Fox Tower.

'The Informers' (The Oregonian, Friday, April 24, 2009)

Comments

[colorado bankruptcy attorney]

Billy Bob Thornton is getting a bit old in my opinion. We need some new stars to take over.