The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Featured image courtesy of © FYZZ FACILITY via imdb.com

Judging films by whether you will remember them is hard because only a few will live up to that. What about the movies that entertain you in the moment, regardless of being memorable? And under which does the new The Informer fall?

The Informer follows ex-con Pete Koslov (Joel Kinnaman) who works as an FBI informer to take down a drug lord named the General. When matters take an unexpected turn, Pete has to go back to prison to run the General’s drug business on the inside and provide enough information to the FBI to get to them to come through. Pete has no option but to risk his own life inside prison, while the lives of his wife and daughter are left unprotected outside. Will the risk pay off or will he lose everything?

Even though not specifically novel, the feature’s plot is engaging with a constant escalation of events, multiple complexities, and several intertwined characters. However, keeping up the momentum throughout the events to the end leaves you feeling like it’s been playing forever.

Courtesy of © Warner Brothers (UK) via imdb.com

The runtime is just shy of two hours, but with all the flashback events and the intertwined characters, it feels like it is a lot longer. The plot is full, and it could definitely have been compacted at the end to deal with – or even reduce – the ‘this has been going on forever’ feeling it instils in audiences. 

The action in the feature is plausible and entertaining, which is a plus since so many action films implausibly exaggerate the abilities of their protagonists into silliness.

For the acting, Joel Kinnaman pulls off the tough ex-con who is also a family guy, whose wife and daughter are a priority. Kinnaman was even able to pull off the emotional scenes, specifically a dinner right before he went back to jail, and again on a phone call with his wife and daughter from prison. Playing FBI agents, Rosamund Pike and Clive Owen both had underplayed performances that never freed their full potential. This could also be partly due to the scriptwriting that does not help these characters develop.

The Informer does not pretend to be anything more than it is; an entertaining action feature that is definitely flawed and not necessarily memorable, but still enjoyable.