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A 1980s Morality Tale, Sans Morality
Rating: One Star
By JONATHAN L. FISCHER, The Bulletin
You should probably know that the Bret Easton Ellis collection from which Gregor Jordan has derived “The Informers,” his latest assault on subtlety and good taste, involves a short story about a vampire. Apparently, the Australian director (“Buffalo Soldiers”) decided that such supernatural themes would make his film — the thesis of which, as far as I can tell, is that the ’80s were, um, decadent — less credible, so he removed them from the script. Yet I left a recent screening of “The Informers” thinking this: that this nihilistic lament to Los Angeles’ affluent, attractive and bored is so comatose it would take a legion of the fanged undead to lend it some life.
Nihilism, incidentally, is a fitting watchword for “The Informers”: Its cast believes in nothing, and same goes for director and film. Containing some dozen characters and not an ounce of characterization, the movie deploys as its primary weapon slobbering shots with much intended gravitas and not a brain cell to back them up: a graffitied Hollywood sign (societal decay?); a bird’s-eye view of a highway pretzel (the anonymity of modernity?); and a parting shot of a diseased young woman rotting away on a beach (desolation? Ol’ reliable desolation?).
Certainly, there’s much value in unpacking the Me Decade — especially since so many of the men and women responsible for and now fixing our current financial fracas came of age during those years. But “The Informers,” like other film adaptations of Mr. Ellis’ work, is a self-described “moralist’s” tale that never pays more than lip service to morality. The only exception is “American Psycho” (2000), in which director Mary Harron and star Christian Bale managed to excavate pathos from the book’s narcissistic, materialistic and bloody themes. Perhaps Mr. Ellis’ very masculine sensibility is moderated by a female hand.
At any rate, the fresh young faces at the center of “The Informers” — Amber Heard, Jon Foster and Austin Nichols, as the early-20s children of power brokers and stars — offer few glimpses at the psychological zeitgeist of the early 1980s, and offer nothing that compares to Mr. Bale’s take on the end of that decade.
More recognizable names fill out the remaining narratives, which relate to each other in varying degrees, and which Mr. Jordan shoots joylessly yet with a sense of obligation.
There is an aloof Billy Bob Thornton as William, who produces films about 12-year-old presidents and talking cars, and who is romantically torn between an up-and-coming news anchor (Winona Ryder) and his wife (Kim Basinger). Then there’s Mel Raido and Rhys Ifans as a drug-dependent rock star (clearly modeled on a Bryan Ferry or David Bowie) and his enabling manager. A divorced, hard-partying father (a quite-good Chris Isaak) takes his son, Tim (Lou Taylor Pucci), on a vacation in Hawaii, and their squabbling is meant to expose the era’s lingering chauvinism (although we mostly just come away with Tim’s familiar, teenage anxiety). And Mickey Rourke shows up in the kind of role he’s been slumming in for the last decade, as an itinerant criminal who imposes on his nephew, a jittery doorman played by Brad Renfro. (Sadly, this is Mr. Renfro’s last film. The actor died last year at 25 of a heroin overdose.)
They all have stories, most of which aren’t especially interesting, which is just as well: Mr. Jordan — who apparently took many tonal liberties with the script penned by Mr. Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki — is mostly concerned with the iconography of the ’80s: All gaudy Ray-Bans, bronzed bodies and skunkish, two-tone hairdos, “The Informers” serves up decadence and then shoves it down our throats. Everybody sleeps with everybody. Drugs are always an arm’s reach away. Grieving parents stage a ritzy funeral for a minor character at the Beverly Hilton, and serve sushi at the reception. Did I mention that everybody sleeps with everybody?
None of this is to say that great movies can’t be seedy (and so many are) — but “The Informers,” which is about as emotionally dynamic as a Droopy cartoon, offers no context for its moral corruption. At one point, aimless Graham (Mr. Foster) laments that he needs “someone to tell me what’s good,” but it comes off as a crammed-in afterthought to the film’s relentless — and, dare I say, earnest? — hedonism. “The Informers” alludes to harsh consequences, sure, but there’s no André Gide-like third act, no emotional reckoning for these would-be Immoralists. Just an image of a girl rotting on a beach.
Jonathan L. Fischer can be reached at jfischer@thebulletin.us
Nihilism, incidentally, is a fitting watchword for “The Informers”: Its cast believes in nothing, and same goes for director and film. Containing some dozen characters and not an ounce of characterization, the movie deploys as its primary weapon slobbering shots with much intended gravitas and not a brain cell to back them up: a graffitied Hollywood sign (societal decay?); a bird’s-eye view of a highway pretzel (the anonymity of modernity?); and a parting shot of a diseased young woman rotting away on a beach (desolation? Ol’ reliable desolation?).
Certainly, there’s much value in unpacking the Me Decade — especially since so many of the men and women responsible for and now fixing our current financial fracas came of age during those years. But “The Informers,” like other film adaptations of Mr. Ellis’ work, is a self-described “moralist’s” tale that never pays more than lip service to morality. The only exception is “American Psycho” (2000), in which director Mary Harron and star Christian Bale managed to excavate pathos from the book’s narcissistic, materialistic and bloody themes. Perhaps Mr. Ellis’ very masculine sensibility is moderated by a female hand.
At any rate, the fresh young faces at the center of “The Informers” — Amber Heard, Jon Foster and Austin Nichols, as the early-20s children of power brokers and stars — offer few glimpses at the psychological zeitgeist of the early 1980s, and offer nothing that compares to Mr. Bale’s take on the end of that decade.
More recognizable names fill out the remaining narratives, which relate to each other in varying degrees, and which Mr. Jordan shoots joylessly yet with a sense of obligation.
There is an aloof Billy Bob Thornton as William, who produces films about 12-year-old presidents and talking cars, and who is romantically torn between an up-and-coming news anchor (Winona Ryder) and his wife (Kim Basinger). Then there’s Mel Raido and Rhys Ifans as a drug-dependent rock star (clearly modeled on a Bryan Ferry or David Bowie) and his enabling manager. A divorced, hard-partying father (a quite-good Chris Isaak) takes his son, Tim (Lou Taylor Pucci), on a vacation in Hawaii, and their squabbling is meant to expose the era’s lingering chauvinism (although we mostly just come away with Tim’s familiar, teenage anxiety). And Mickey Rourke shows up in the kind of role he’s been slumming in for the last decade, as an itinerant criminal who imposes on his nephew, a jittery doorman played by Brad Renfro. (Sadly, this is Mr. Renfro’s last film. The actor died last year at 25 of a heroin overdose.)
They all have stories, most of which aren’t especially interesting, which is just as well: Mr. Jordan — who apparently took many tonal liberties with the script penned by Mr. Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki — is mostly concerned with the iconography of the ’80s: All gaudy Ray-Bans, bronzed bodies and skunkish, two-tone hairdos, “The Informers” serves up decadence and then shoves it down our throats. Everybody sleeps with everybody. Drugs are always an arm’s reach away. Grieving parents stage a ritzy funeral for a minor character at the Beverly Hilton, and serve sushi at the reception. Did I mention that everybody sleeps with everybody?
None of this is to say that great movies can’t be seedy (and so many are) — but “The Informers,” which is about as emotionally dynamic as a Droopy cartoon, offers no context for its moral corruption. At one point, aimless Graham (Mr. Foster) laments that he needs “someone to tell me what’s good,” but it comes off as a crammed-in afterthought to the film’s relentless — and, dare I say, earnest? — hedonism. “The Informers” alludes to harsh consequences, sure, but there’s no André Gide-like third act, no emotional reckoning for these would-be Immoralists. Just an image of a girl rotting on a beach.
Jonathan L. Fischer can be reached at jfischer@thebulletin.us
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