2009: WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR - THE INFORMERS

I hated this movie. Every last bit of it. If I had to choose the worst movie I've ever seen, this would be right at the top. It played at Sundance last year and I saw it in the press/industry room, which was packed. There was a lot of buzz going in, so I was excited to see it. Then it started and shortly after the bad dialogue and pretentious attitudes took over (which I'm pretty sure was right after the opening credits ended), people started leaving. Then more people. Then some more. Midway through the movie a little more than half the audience was gone.

Had I written this last January when I saw the movie, I could have listed at least 25 things that made me come to the "worst movie ever" conclusion, but it's been a year and I can't remember all of them. All I remember is how much I hated every single character and the fact that half of the ones that were introduced were never even given anything that could resemble a character arc. And the "That was the whole point. It's a snapshot of what life was like in LA back then." argument doesn't work with me.

The Informers could be compared to Rules of Attraction in a lot of ways. They both feature a myriad of characters, overlapping arcs and intertwining stories. The difference is that Rules of Attraction was a great movie because it kept things interesting. While all of the characters in that movie could be classified as 'bad people' they were at least entertaining and relatable on some level. They were given actual substance to work with and every actor was given enough direction that they ended up with at least one redeeming quality and while you knew what they were doing wasn't necessarily the right thing, you understood where they were coming from and why they chose to do what they did.

With The Informers you had a bunch of spoiled, rich pricks acting like spoiled, rich pricks. Not a single person had any charisma and none of the actors were talented enough to breathe any semblance of life into any of the one dimensional characters.

All that and the constant "Hey! Check it out! This movie is set in the 80's! Remember the 80's? Yeah you do! Hipsters love the 80's!" attitude didn't help.

I could keep going, but that would require me to watch it again. And that's not going to happen.

Worst. Movie. Ever.