The Informers (Gregor Jordan, 2009): USA

Reviewed by Kevin Tran. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

How does a film suppose to discuss serious issues with its audience? Surely you don’t just throw together stories about messed up people concerning your issue, without any sense of character development or theme, and by the end of the film expect your audience to think, “Wow, that film was really powerful.” Well this is what director Gregor Jordan did in The Informers , but instead when the screen turns black and credits roll, I thought, “Wow, what were they thinking?”

The Informers weaves together different insignificant stories to form an insignificant film about the fast times of a retro Los Angeles. Despite a relatively strong cast of actors, the film doesn’t utilize any of its star power and instead focuses on the drama of young, spoiled brats as if 90210 were set in the eighties instead of the nineties. The film includes a kidnapping, an AIDS panic, orgies, MTV, cocaine, and broken families, among other things that convoluted the plot. The film stars Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger, Billy Bob Thorton, and Winona Ryder as characters who they’ve played before, totally underdeveloped and therefore uninteresting.

It is difficult to find any redeeming aspects in The Informers, because there aren’t any. I kept waiting for a moment where thing would start making sense, but it never does. I wanted to see characters break archetypes and change, but they don’t. Half way through the film, I finally hoped that it would end, but I still hade fifty minutes to go. If this film gets shown in theater (God forbid) stay far far away.