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The Informers is an American ensemble film written by Bret Easton Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki and directed by Gregor Jordan. The film is based on Ellis’ 1994 collection of short stories of the same name. The film, which is set amidst the decadence of the early 1980s, depicts an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, alcohol, and drugs. Filming took place in Los Angeles, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires in 2007. It was the last film for actor Brad Renfro before his death on January 15, 2008, at the age of 25. The film was dedicated to his memory.
An article published by Reuters described the story as “seven stories taking course during a week in the life of movie executives, rock stars, a vampire and other morally challenged characters”, set in 1980s Los Angeles. The supernatural content was not to be included in the final film, however.
The Informers is a 2008 American ensemble Hollywood drama film written by Bret Easton Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki and directed by Gregor Jordan. The film is based on Ellis’ 1994 collection of short stories of the same name. The film, which is set amidst the decadence of the early 1980s, depicts an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, alcohol, and drugs. Filming took place in Los Angeles, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires in 2007.
The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2009. It received a limited release on April 24, 2009 in 482 movie theatres in the US, where it made approximately US$300,000 on its opening weekend. The film was only in release for 3 days and the final gross for the film was $382,174, well below its $18 million budget. The film was then released on DVD & Blu-ray on August 25, 2009. It was granted a 15 certificate by the BBFC and was released under four different versions.
About the Story
The movie opens in 1983 at an elegant Los Angeles party at a mansion. Bruce (Fernando Consagra) wanders away from the party and is killed by a speeding car. After the funeral, his friends Graham, Martin and Tim sit drinking with Raymond on a fancy hotel patio. Only Raymond is truly devastated and cries bitterly. The friends dismiss Raymond’s tears. When Raymond leaves, Graham follows him.
Graham Sloan (Jon Foster) is the son of a rich, estranged couple and drives a Porsche, stays in glamorous hotel rooms, and is a drug dealer. His father William (Billy Bob Thornton) is a movie producer with a pill-addled wife (Kim Basinger). William is having an affair with a local TV anchorwoman, Cheryl Moore (Winona Ryder). His wife, meanwhile, is having sex with her son’s friend Martin (Austin Nichols). Graham is aware that his girlfriend Christie (Amber Heard) is cheating on him with a number of men, including his best friend Martin, a bisexual rock video producer. Since Graham and Martin are also sleeping together, Graham appears to be trying to accept the open relationship.
A new wave rock singer named Bryan Metro (Mel Raido) flies into L.A. He stumbles through his fancy hotel room and has sex with young groupies. Getting out of the bath, he slips on the wet floor and slashes open his hand. He answers the phone, and he is berated by his manager for sleeping with underage groupies, and he mumbles that he needs a doctor.
Later, he is taken to meet a movie producer who hopes to make a profitable B-movie starring the singer. The singer appears to be barely coherent, and his attention is only caught when he sees a young girl wearing braces watching TV in an adjoining room. Bryan staggers towards her and takes her into a bedroom. Later, he stumbles into a hotel room and finds a groupie in his bed. Slurring his words, he asks her to come closer, and he kisses her, and then punches her in the face.
Jack (Brad Renfro), a hotel doorman in Christie’s place, has come to seek his fortune in L.A. as an actor. He is making a humble living working as a doorman and lives in a small, run-down house. He is alarmed when he gets a phone call from his grizzled uncle Peter (Mickey Rourke), a drifter ex-con who claims he needs a place to stay. Jack angrily refuses the request, because he wants to leave the immoral, criminal side of his family background behind him.
However, when Jack returns home, his uncle is waiting for him in a beaten-up van. To Jack’s horror, his uncle is involved in a gangland kidnapping-for-hire plot, and the uncle has brought a kidnapped child to Jack’s house. When a cleanly dressed, yet menacing gangster calls on Jack when the uncle is out, and asks to collect the “package”, Jack feigns ignorance. When the uncle returns he tells Jack that the boy has to be killed, on the grounds that it will be more humane than what the gangsters will do to him, Jack offers to kill the boy. Instead of slitting the boy’s throat, Jack pretends to kill the boy but actually releases him. Jack hides his failure to kill the boy by cutting open his hand and smearing blood on his hands and face, and he joins his uncle in the van and flees the scene.
Tim Price (Lou Taylor Pucci) is pressured to go with his father, Les (Chris Isaak), on a trip to Hawaii, ostensibly for the two to share father-son bonding time. They go to a bar, where Les starts a chat with two young women, who may be willing to have sex with them. However, Tim is not interested, and he is disgusted by his father’s drunken, leering passes at the women. Tim does later find a girl he likes at the beach, but when the three of them have dinner together, Les begins to make passes at her and then both the father and the young woman make fun of Tim by suggesting that gay men were making passes at him on the beach. Tim leaves the dinner and goes out to be alone. When his father finds him, Tim refuses to talk, saying he has nothing to say.
About the Production
Filming began on October 12, 2007, in Los Angeles, and later moved to Uruguay and Buenos Aires before wrapping on December 6, 2007. According to Fox News, Ellis and Jarecki had spent three years working on a script and prepping the film for release, and Jarecki was set to direct. The film was supposed to be “an absurdist, lighthearted, and expansive satire.”
When producers replaced Jarecki with Australian director Gregor Jordan, the tone of the film strayed away from Ellis and Jarecki’s original premise to become something that the cast and writers were embarrassed by. Amid concerns about the budget and about sex and violence (much like that of Ellis’ earlier adaptation, American Psycho), the vampire subplot was excised from the movie entirely along with actor Brandon Routh, who played a vampire. Jordan’s final movie, which has received negative reviews from some critics, became “some terrible, dark meditation” under his interpretation of the script, according to an insider involved with the production. Jordan also reportedly cut the script down from Ellis’ original 150 pages to only 94.
“It’s hard to tell now, but it was supposed to be like criminals and vampires and girls and young people… There were things I recognized, and a lot that I missed. But it’s the director’s version of the script, and that’s just how it is.” — Bret Easton Ellis on The Informers.
The Informers (2009)
Directed by: Gregor Jordan
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke, Jon Foster, Amber Heard, Rhys Ifans, Chris Isaak, Aaron Himelstein, Cameron Goodman, Austin Nichols, Suzanne Ford
Screenplay by: Bret Easton Ellis, Nicholas Jarecki
Production Design by: Cecilia Montiel
Cinematography by: Petra Korner
Film Editing by: Robert Brakey
Costume Design by: Annie Bloom, Sophie De Rakoff
Set Decoration by: Kathy Orlando
Art Direction by: Nick Ralbovsky
Music by: Christopher Young
MPAA Rating: R strong sexual content, nudity, drug use, pervasive language and disturbing images.
Distributed by: Senator Entertainment
Release Date: April 24, 2009
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