3/5 California dreaming
  by H. Schneider (window seat)
It is hard to make an interesting movie about Hollywood producers, coke addicts, drug dealers, alcoholics, group sex, early AIDS cases (the story is set in 1983), adultery, kidnapping, pop stars, the whole lot of emptiness.
And this is not one.

But: with Micky Rourke (as evil incarnate, a trafficker in stolen children --- that is, until you see his customer, then he seems to be nearly human), with Billy Bob Thornton (as manic adulterer), with Kim Basinger (as heroic victim, with all addictions on this planet), with Wynona Ryder (grown up, now a hysterical mid 30s). Plus a bunch of young faces that the film is not long enough for me to learn to recognize. Plus a young woman who has more nude scenes than text lines to speak.

In other words: this is not a good movie, but it is a bad movie in an amazingly interesting fashion. Maybe the only person in the whole plot that is not weird is the teenage son of the compulsively flirtatious alcoholic father (Chris Isaac), on joint vacation in Hawaii.
This is the kind of film that you can't possibly like, but on the other hand it is too fascinating to walk out...
Based on a book by the American Psycho dude.


5/5 Awesome Amber
  by J. Lauer (USA)
This movie has redeeming value. Amber Heard nude. They should have shot Amber the whole 90 minutes!

1/5 The absolutely worst movie I have ever seen
  by HLN (Orlando, FL)
Don't do it. DO NOT watch this horrible movie. Cannot believe anyone would put money into, making this piece of shame. Don't let the big name actors in this movie fool you. Seems like it was directed by a 10 year old. Horrible plot, actually what plot. If I could rate minus 1000 * (stars), I would. The only thing funny was Mickey Rourke's face with all his plastic operations. He looks like he has been hit in the face with a baseball bat.

You read my title, it is an absolutely garbage movie.

To those people who gave it 5 stars, are you kidding me? That is like calling a Ford Pinto, a luxury fine piece of automobile. Or better yet, calling an 1970 8 track tape player equals to DTS HD Master audio.

There is something wrong with the producers and director of this movie. Highschool Musical 3 is much better than this movie and I hate HSM 3.

4/5 Nearly great
  by Bob Humbug
My only real beef with this film is its ending.

Endings seem to somehow ruin many otherwise great films, and I almost wonder if studios don't have little covens of pilled-out, numbers-fueled ending writers that they subject films to. But maybe I'm just making excuses because I really wanted to like this film.

The final sequence(s) and their admittedly striking images do something that the rest of the film carefully spares the audience from: they slap you in the face with something akin to the notion of 'a moral to the story.' It doesn't really give you an answer as to what meaning any of it might have, it just suggests that this one suddenly lucid horrific realization that everything rots must surely mean something and then prompts you to pass some sort of judgment. All the amazingly candid good bad and ugly then suddenly becomes tinged by a regret that borders on coercive--and 'The Informers' just turn into 'The Big Jerks.'



2/5 Missing: Story and Character Development
  by prisrob (New EnglandUSA)
This film has a cast that should make this film a winner, Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke and Winona Ryder, with a group of young actors heading for fame and fortune. However, no matter how good the film looks, it has no story, no character development and no point. What was the director thinking?

This is a film of the 80's and Hollywood, the winners and the losers. They all mix and intermingle in between the booze, the drugs and the sex. Other than that, I can find no meaning to the film. What it is trying to convey is a mystery. It is a film that keeps you guessing. I kept thinking that the point of the film was coming soon. But, no, it ended as it started. One actor, Lou Taylor Pucci, peaked my interest- he is a good actor and has the ability to convey his character, but I was at a loss to figure out who that character was.

I can find no redeeming quality for the film. I have not seen a film of this nature in a long time and wonder if it won the Razzi of the year award.

Not Recommended. prisrob 10-17-09

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