The Informers

Senator Distribution | Release Date: April 24, 2009

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

20	METASCORE Generally unfavorable reviews based on 25 Critics

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle

Has an air of detachment and sadness, enhanced by the movie's being set a full quarter century ago. Read full review

Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert

If The Informers doesn't sound to you like a pleasant time at the movies, you are right. To repeat: dread, despair and doom. It is often however repulsively fascinating and has been directed by Gregor Jordan as a soap opera from hell, with good sets and costumes. Read full review

The A.V. ClubNoel Murray

Though The Informers is by no means great--nor wholly true to the vision of Ellis, who co-wrote the screenplay with Nicholas Jarecki--moments sprinkled throughout the film capture Ellis' particular mix of flip yuppie satire and lived-in paranoia better than any big-screen version of his work to date. Read full review

The Hollywood ReporterStephen Farber

One long wallow in sordidness. Read full review

VarietyRob Nelson

The film is banal by obvious intent. The only question, as with other Ellis adaptations including "American Psycho," is whether auds will appreciate the aggressively shallow depiction of an aggressively shallow milieu, or mistake the pic's implicit critique for the crime itself. Read full review

Film ThreatRick Kisonak

This is one of those "Crash"-style pictures with interwoven narrative strands. The problem here is that most of the strands wind up little more than loose ends. Read full review

ReelViewsJames Berardinelli

The Informers is nihilism for nihilism's sake; a bleak and borderline-unwatchable collage of misanthropes, self-absorbed a**holes, and pathetic weaklings as they struggle to move forward during the early 1980s in Los Angeles. Read full review

Charlotte ObserverRoger Moore

It's a terrible muddle unless you take it as a satire on the Age of Ellis, the Jacqueline Susann for that Flock of Seagulls era. That way, the unintentional laughs seem almost ironic. Read full review

Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea

Another tale of Tinseltown drugs, sex and excess - has transferred itself to the screen with mind-boggling, laugh-inciting horribleness. Read full review

Miami HeraldConnie Ogle

Here's what is bad: this movie. Read full review

Boston GlobeTy Burr

You come away with only the memory of Christie, the film's perfect California blonde, lying insensate on the beach in the final ravages of AIDS - a potent and frightening image the rest of The Informers can't live up to. Read full review

USA TodayClaudia Puig

Shocking is the fact that three highly regarded actors -- Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke and Billy Bob Thornton -- chose to star in this dreadful film. Read full review

Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips

This one's a certifiable soul-sucker, dining out on its characters' venalities while wagging a finger at the horror, the horror. Read full review

Portland OregonianM. E. Russell

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 Ban du Soleil commercial. Read full review

Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach

An awful film about an awful time. Read full review

TV Guide MagazinePerry Seibert

So, in essence, The Informers fails precisely because we never believe these lost souls were ever human enough to have had a soul to lose in the first place. Read full review

Village VoiceJ. Hoberman

A tale of absolute self-absorption and unconscious revelation. Read full review

The New York TimesA.O. Scott

Nearly every time Mr. Jordan, working from a script by Mr. Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki, tries for similar effects, he goes badly awry, so that you snicker when the movie is trying to be poignant and groan when it aims to make a joke. Read full review

New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman

Ellis' stamp is immediately apparent, from the absurdly vapid characters to the undercurrent of barely repressed anger. Read full review

Washington PostJohn Anderson

A nihilistic, narcissistic, knuckleheaded move about nihilistic, narcissistic knuckleheads, The Informers might have been an interesting exercise in satire, if it only had a sense of humor. Which it doesn't. You'll need one, though, after forking over 10 bucks to see it. Read full review

Los Angeles TimesRobert Abele

Conjures up plenty of debauched tableaux with its photogenic, jaded showbiz denizens and hangers-on, but nary a reason for existing. Read full review

Rolling StonePeter Travers

One of the worst movies of this or any year. Read full review

Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten

The top-line talent, particularly Thornton and Rourke, do manage to hold our attention with idiosyncratic performances, but most of the others are a jumble of fair-haired, disaffected boys. Read full review

Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones

Repulsive 80s flashback. Read full review

New York PostLou Lumenick

Tedious and tawdry. Read full review