3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Informer

2019, Andrea Di Stefano (Escobar: Paradise Lost) -- Netflix

Not sure how much it carried over but this is a movie based on a Swedish crime novel called "Three Seconds". From my viewpoint, it was a Standard Netflix Crime Movie just a tad above "alright". I watch these movies as comfort food, but also to feed this blog. When I can choose between stock & trade crime thriller or rewatch of something easy (last night was Pacific Rim: Uprising; migawd that movie actually gets worse the more I watch it) I should choose the former, for even at its worse, I can write something about it. 'Feel Compelled' is more accurate than 'can'.

There is a whole sub-tangent about a desire to just consume films, consume consume consume, quantity over quality. Not sure where that comes from but, there it is...

Peter Koslow (Joel Kinnaman, Silent Night) is an ex-con working undercover for the FBI, having insinuated himself into a Polish mafia run by "The General" (Eugene Lipinski, Fringe). The initial operation goes awry when one of the mafia thugs Pete runs with goes off book and kills a cop. The FBI drops Pete like a hot potato. The General blames Pete for letting his nephew kill the cop. To make amends, he demands Pete break his parole and be sent back to jail, where he will take control of the local drug trade. The FBI see this as another opportunity to take down The General and make all sorts of false promises to Pete, like keeping his family safe. Meanwhile NYC detective Grens (Common, John Wick: Chapter 2) is slowly putting it all together as he investigates the death of the rookie cop he put undercover, the cop that was killed.

As a movie I consumed, and this finally being finished off months later (it falling into the I Saw This!! realm), I am struck by wanting to at least tell you what I remember, beyond plot. If there is a general theme about the movie its, "Don't trust the authorities." Pete was not a criminal, just a vet who killed a man in a bar fight and got connected with the criminal underground in hail. The FBI took advantage of that, but in this movie they are depicted as just corrupt, self-serving opportunists that don't care an iota about the crime they are fighting nor the pawns they make use of. Everyone is a shell of a developed character, but I don't begrudge movies of that if they at least tell us an engaging story. Its barely that. Kinnaman does a decent job of making us like Pete, but for the most part he is just surrounded by recognizable faces putting in a paycheck.

You don't do well convincing us as the value of why you watch these movies... in many ways these lackadaisical posts parallel these movies and their creation.

I suppose when it comes down to it, this is a movie I saw, and I liked Kinnaman.