The Informers [Blu-ray]

The Informers follows the hollow, toxic lives of the privileged and the deprived in 1980s Los Angeles. A movie producer (Billy Bob Thornton) can’t decide between his ex-wife (Kim Basinger) and his local news-anchor girlfriend (Winona Ryder); a cockney rock star finds underage sex partners are the only thing that distracts him from his drug-fueled ennui; a blond young man (Lou Taylor Pucci) loathes his boozy father (Chris Isaak) but goes to Hawaii with him anyway; another blond young man (Jon Foster) grows uncomfortable with the group sex he and his beautiful girlfriend (Amber Heard, who has more nude scenes than lines of dialogue) keep having; and a neurotic doorman (Brad Renfro, in what is sadly his last role) has an intimidating house guest (Mickey Rourke) who’s a human trafficker. This is a movie in which playing Pat Benatar at a funeral is a symbol of emptiness; a movie in which beautiful people respond to vague unhappiness by becoming emotionally inert; a movie in which glossy depictions of sex and drug use are intended to capture ineffable angst and alienation. It is, in short, a movie based on a Bret Easton Ellis novel, this time with a screenplay written by Ellis himself. Regrettably, it has neither the vapid but energetic editing of The Rules of Attraction nor the vulnerable face of Robert Downey, Jr., from Less Than Zero. Pucci (Thumbsucker) provides some sympathetic charisma. Also featuring Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill) as the predatory rock star’s bored manager. --Bret Fetzer