The Informers at Sundance

January 22, 1:39 PMLA Actor's Life ExaminerSuzanne Ford

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 He said WHAT?

Back in early November I posted a two-part article about an amusing audition experience from over a year ago that had, to put it mildly, um ... unexpected results. Well, guess what? The bombshells just keep on coming.

First I find out that this little gig I did last year called "The Informers" is launching at Sundance. Yeah! I know!  What's more, it became rather a big deal. I mean, it's got Mickey (that would be Roarke, of recent Golden Globe wrestling fame) and Brad (that would be the tragic Renfro, in his last film appearance) and gorgeous Kim (not L'il, Stanley nor Hunter) and Billy Bob and Winona (not Judd). And it's about the excessive early 80s in Los Angeles, which has to add up, in the gloom of this economic climate, to the perfect escape, right? So who knows? It could be a slam dunk!

But wait; stop the presses. Please. You want vitriolic reviews? You want laugh-out-loud scorching, withering criticism so ferocious it almost beats vintage Dorothy Parker or GB Shaw? OK, maybe it's not quite that eloquent, but it's certainly entertaining. Here's a small sampling, reprinted word-for-word. (To see the complete article, click on each critic's name.)

"Some movies, as the saying goes, leave you feeling like you need to take a shower. This movie made me feel like I had just taken one. In prison. On my way to get the bad news at the STD clinic and attend my first 12-step meeting. Every festival needs a designated disaster, a much-anticipated flick that fails on many levels at once, and 'The Informers,' which presents early AIDS-era Los Angeles as a featureless landscape of narcissism and debauchery, fills the bill for Sundance 2009." -- Andrew O'Hehir

See what I mean? But wait! There's more:

"...with the arrival of Gregor Jordan's nearly unwatchable 'The Informers,' Ellis finally got the adaptation we haven't been waiting for. Little more than a jumbled mass of unrelated subplots, 'The Informers' is about a bunch of rich, spoiled, disaffected, hedonistic, obnoxious, ungrateful and gorgeous young people who simply do whatever they want and abuse / dismiss / mock anyone who gives them a second glance. Why anyone would want to spend 94 minutes with a crew this venal and hateful is anyone's guess, but combine their collective unpleasantness with a screenplay that 'adapts' little and goes nowhere fast, and you're looking at a movie that's an absolute chore to sit through." -- Scott Weinberg

And not to be outdone, this one employs brevity, which, as we know, is the soul of wit. (Or as the aforementioned D. Parker once said, of lingerie.):

"This film was one of the most frustrating messes I have seen in a long time. The best thing about the movie was hearing the groans from the rest of the press corps out in the hall after the screening." -- Aaron Peck

Ouch, huh?

But I really don't want to gloat. The people who made this film are all gifted professionals with deep experience and many glorious credits to their names. To be fair and to extend a somewhat kinder hand, here's one thoughtful critic who outlines the film's problems a bit more sympathetically:

"I get what Ellis was doing, commenting on the sexual excesses of the 80s when AIDS was first coming into being, and the disease is certainly part of the film. But the screenplay, co-written by first-timer Nicholas Jarecki, along with novelist Ellis, has no depth whatsoever, but a meaningless series of unsympathetic caricatures, brought to life by a bevy of attractive, soulless actors. None of this is the fault of director Jordan, an accomplished filmmaker who can only shoot the material available to him. He has a fluid, visual style, and the film certainly looks stylish and perfectly captures the period. With the exception of pros Billy Bob Thornton and a striking Kim Basinger, 'The Informers' has very little to offer, apart from numerous sex scenes, drug-taking and the weirdest, out of place character played by Mickey Rourke, who needs to think about the choices he makes. This film about perpetual self-destruction is an unnecessary addition to Sundance, and it is probable, given the film's bad reviews, that a theatrical release is an unlikely event, but rather (it will be) relegated to cable and DVD. As a huge admirer of Gregor's work, it is unfortunate that he opted to do something this shallow and narratively incohesive, but then you're only as good as your source material, and therein lay the problem." -- Paul Fischer

One personal sigh of relief--in all the reviews there's no mention of me anywhere, not that I was expecting any, but this is something for which in this case I think I should be very grateful. Of course my part (Bruce's Mom) is tiny in spite of its high emotional content, and I won't even know if I made the final cut until somebody tells me, or when it comes out on DVD or cable. But you know? Even if I have ended up on the cutting room floor, it's still given me a great story.

Bottom line, the whole episode is just one more roller coaster ride, one more zany escapade in the land of Hollyweird, and (for anybody with a certain number of years on the riverboat, anyway) one more validation of the fact that in this profession, a single, ironclad rule will always prevail: You Never Can Tell.