Perhaps the film's biggest mistake is that after more than an hour of proving how pointless and vapid these characters are, it leaves us with a parting shot indicating we should care about what happens to them. We don't.

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The Informers (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:99
Fresh:14
Rotten:85
Average Rating:3.6/10
Consensus: As miserable and insipid as its protagonists, The Informers fails to provide anything to think about after the sheen of fake blond is gone.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for strong sexual content, nudity, drug use, pervasive language and some disturbing images.
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Apr 24, 2009 Limited
Synopsis:
In such works as Less Than Zero and American Psycho Brett Easton Ellis brilliantly dissects contemporary American society, a culture in which too much is never enough. Now, adapting his own...
In such works as Less Than Zero and American Psycho Brett Easton Ellis brilliantly dissects contemporary American society, a culture in which too much is never enough. Now, adapting his own acclaimed novel for the screen, he returns to the Los Angeles of the early 1980's with a multi-strand narrative that deftly balances a vast array of characters who represent both the top of the heap (a Hollywood dream merchant, a dissolute rock star, an aging newscaster) and the bottom (a voyeuristic doorman, an amoral ex-con).
Connecting all his intertwining strands are the quintessential Ellis protagonists -- a group of beautiful, blonde young men and women who sleep all day and party all night, doing drugs -- and one another -- with abandon, never realizing that they are dancing on the edge of a volcano. Filmed with uncommon glamour and grit by acclaimed Australian director Gregor Jordan (Ned Kelly, Buffalo Soldiers), The Informers is an alternately blistering and chilling portrait of hedonism run amuck. --© Senator
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, Winona Ryder
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke, Winona Ryder, Jon Foster, Amber Heard, Brad Renfro, Chris Isaak, Austin Nichols, Lou Taylor Pucci, Mel Raido, Rhys Ifans, Jessica Stroup
Director: Gregor Jordan
Director: Gregor Jordan
Screenwriter: Nicholas Jarecki
Studio: Senator Entertainment
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Reviews for The Informers
An outbreak of '80s nostalgia is the best explanation for The Informers, a worse movie based on a worse Bret Easton Ellis book.
If The Informers doesn't sound to you like a pleasant time at the movies, you are right.
In spite of the title, The Informers doesn't get below the surface of the era of Reaganesque excess to tell us anything new. But it's way cool to look at.
The Informers is a beautiful picture of misery, but the surface quality is never penetrated to satisfaction. In the end, it's a mess of smeary mascara, mix tapes, and hair mousse in search of connective tissue.
The Informers is the kind of movie that, upon leaving the theater, provokes the urge to take a shower.
The Informers is the new gold dream: a gorgeous lie of squandered wealth that might make you choke laughing.
Occasionally, some fool gets the idea that his literary wretched excess would make for a good film.
There's plenty of incident, but not much plot. As befits a tale of absolute self-absorption and unconscious revelation, The Informers often seems to be telling on itself.
A rancid load of swill called The Informers, from a depraved 1994 book by Bret Easton Ellis, is, like The Soloist, a look at the underbelly of L.A., but the resemblance ends there.
I don't find The Informers to be without interest -- unlike most critics -- but neither do I find it successful enough to recommend it.
Sublimely awful, director Gregor Jordan's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' dystopic vision of '80s era Los Angeles bounces between a slew of unlikable reckless characters.
[Features] a ludicrously concocted, thoroughly unconvincing narrative and the pervading sense of style supplanting substance.
Gregor Jordan and Bret Easton Ellis take no prisoners in this uncompromising, expertly crafted shocker about hedonism in early-'80s L.A.
Perhaps the only use this film has is to give philosophers who sit through it some way of experiencing what eternity truly means.
An ugly, blank slate of a film, one that feels like a rough outline for one of the better Ellis adaptations.
People sometimes had ordinary, reasonably polite conversations, even in the '80s. Not absolutely all the talking was affectless mumbling, angry recriminations, drug deals or TV news about Ronald Reagan.
Characters become real enough to draw you in, yet are not deeply drawn enough to make you care.
Open endings work for some movies, but a story this depressing needs some resolution.
Latest News for The Informers
August 24, 2009:
RT on DVD: Exclusive Informers clip, Dungeons & Dragons, and more!
This week in home releases, we have a Bret Easton Ellis adaptation (The Informers, which we present with an exclusive clip), a classy Criterion release (The Last Days of Disco),... More...
April 24, 2009:
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April 23, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Fighting Is Down For The Count
This week at the movies, weve got bare-knuckle bouts (Fighting, starring Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard), the wonders of nature (Earth, narrated by James Earl Jones), a... More...
January 16, 2009:
New: Unrated Trailer ![]()
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| 90% 90% | The White Ribbon | 12/30 |
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