Juan Angel Urruzola/Senator EntertainmentReview in a Hurry: Novelist Bret Easton Ellis sure is mad at the '80s. This latest big-screen adaptation of one of his books, much to nobody's surprise, is once again a sick joke all about how obnoxious yuppies back then did a lot of drugs and were complete jerks. It's actually pretty funny if you don't feel the need to care for or sympathize with anybody onscreen.
The Bigger Picture: If you hated Paul Haggis' Crash, meet the antidote. A car-crash death at a swanky Los Angeles party brings together a disparate group of mourners, whose individual stories we follow as they all proceed to screw up their lives and learn absolutely nothing.
A movie producer (Billy Bob Thornton) moves back in with his pill-popping ex (Kim Basinger), even as he still has eyes for the news anchorwoman (Winona Ryder) he's been bedding. A U.K. rock star (Mel Raido) with a penchant for bedding underage girls (and the occasional boy) sinks lower into madness. A spoiled rich-boy drug dealer (Jon Foster) has second thoughts about his frequent threesomes with his hot girlfriend (Amber Heard) and their shallow hustler pal (Austin Nichols). A hotel receptionist (the late Brad Renfro) gets a surprise visit from his criminal uncle (Mickey Rourke), who proceeds to kidnap a random small child off the street.
But Robert Altman this ain't. The scenes are short and sarcastic, consisting almost purely of setup and punch line—then it's on to the next joke. Director Gregor Jordan, who previously gave us a fine adaptation of Robert O'Connor's black comedy Buffalo Soldiers, is the perfect guy for this material, though the commercial prospects here are iffy, as tone-wise, this movie makes Observe and Report look like Paul Blart.
The casting of the likes of Rourke and Basinger is a terrific in-joke, a foreshadowing of how these young party boys and girls will end up down the road...if they live that long (AIDS rears its head before all is said and done).
The contempt The Informers has for all its characters is truly entertaining, and it's supposed to be, though it does wear a bit thin by the end when things try to get sort-of tragic. If you've ever been mad at a movie for being "mean-spirited," however, don't go to this one.
The 180—a Second Opinion: Making fun of pretentious English rock stars and spoiled rich boys isn't exactly a challenging topic, is it?