It's kind of strange to explain why I liked this film. Maybe it was the ensemble casting united; or maybe it's because I tend to enjoy hyper-linked stories where unconnected situations and characters will connect with each other at the ending; I really don't know. Or more important, perhaps I didn't find reasons enough to dislike it even though there were plenty of them.
Bret Easton Ellis adapts his own novel into the screen and even though I haven't read the book I believe this is somewhat well adapted, very close to his style of writing and characters presentations and inconclusive endings to some of them. The story presented has several characters (played by Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Jon Foster, Lou Taylor Pucci, Winona Ryder, Brad Renfro, Mickey Rourke, Chris Isaak, Rhys Ifans among others) messing up with their lives while trying to figure out a meaning to it. It all takes place in the 1980's (as usual with Ellis works) and it does involve sex, drugs and rock n'roll.
The problem with "The Informers" is that it is a movie that doesn't have a heart or it just doesn't beat enough, by that I mean that you leave the experience without getting much except the reunion of a good cast giving average performances. We're thrown with these characters, know few things about them, then the story tries to conclude something but not enough to let us take our own conclusions of why they do what they do. For instance, the story involving the kid and his father on vacation trying to get to know each other where the father tries to communicate with his son who knows that this is impossible, since they have nothing in common. It only gives innuendos about the boy's sexuality, some sort of confusion and in the end we kept wondering what was that all about. There's something there that could be explored more, the script never answered what needed to be answered so the bond with its audience is a little inexistent.
The weakest aspect of all is that it doesn't look the 80's, it's too much 2000's, it's too updated. To have an good example of recreating an decade years later and also a film based on Ellis novel, "American Psycho" was infinitely better not only the story but also bringing the 1980's back with their colors, the loud music (and of great quality), the pop culture references. In "The Informers" it's only a music here and there or a TV report about the AIDS that inform us that we are in another decade.
This melancholic tale about ill fated characters living as a lost generation has its good moments. It's a good film, it never leaves you uninterested or bored or angry. It's main difficulty is a script that doesn't dig a little deeper and rarely gives some powerful insights about how troubled was the 1980's even with everything going in your favor like the characters presented here, all rich and beautiful but miserably sad. 6/10
