Recruited by the FBI, ex-con and former special operations soldier Pete Koslow uses his covert skills to try and take down the General -- the most powerful crime boss in New York. When a sting results in the death of an undercover cop, Pete suddenly finds himself caught in the crossfire between the mob and the FBI. Forced to return to prison, Koslow must now come up with a plan to escape from the clutches of the law and the General to save himself and his family.
The informant feels much like one of those films which go under the radar and is under-appreciated because of its lack of A-List celebrities or that it isn’t part of a large scale series or franchise. I won’t lie, seeing this film was not part of my plans, and I hadn’t even heard of it until I looked at the Cineworld listings - which proves my point of it going under the radar. Nevertheless, what this film provides is a lot of action, a strong ecosystem of modern-day crime and a storyline which feels well put together and nicely presented too. Nonetheless, films like this always encounter issues, but the question is are these issues big enough to make the film feel weak and poor or do they not distract from the quality? Here are my thoughts.
I’ll start off with what I liked about this film, right from the beginning of the story. For a film like this, it is really key and important to start off with the right emotions and feelings to make it powerful, this film did that perfectly. By showing us the main character, not only was he distinctively introduced to us straight away but by showing his phone call and allowing us to find out about a ‘bust’ and that his family ‘need to be ready’ not only did this help to establish his role within a criminal organisation really early but it was really good at creating both tension and excitement by using these really clever dialogue lines. The background music and general feeling was also great to support this tense and mysterious feeling. I thought that after this, the really subtle yet simple way of mixing both his police life/criminal life by cutting shots of his team and his criminal gang, it was great at immersing us in the culture of the film and the character. One of my favourite things about this film though was how it built a really realistic, exciting and immersive ecosystem around not only the characters but the plot and story too. I love how the characters dialogue between each other feels really fresh and authentic, seeing the drug deal towards the start of the film when they’re selling to an undercover cop, the way in which all of the characters speak to each other and threaten him when they realise who he is helps to not only make scenes exciting but also tense because we can sense the emotions of the characters really easily through their dialogue. The characters interactions feel great and clear too throughout, the different styles and themes that are presented when we see both sets of characters not only helps to inform us of which side Pete is working on - seeing how when he speaks to the mysterious ‘boss’ of the Polish gang we feel really on edge and scared about how they subtly threaten each other, whereas around the police officers we feel calmer yet more excited due to the fast-paced side story regarding the NYPD vs FBI investigation. As well as this though, I thought that seeing the personal connections between not only Wilcox and Pete helped to give the story a personal touch, I really liked how it always felt like Pete was being screwed over by the FBI which allowed us to essentially make a judgement on how we felt towards the characters, at the start we supported them for helping Pete but as the film goes on then they change and keep letting him down, and then turning on him which leads us to dislike him - this is cool because it just helps to keep a fresh feeling to the film. I also loved how the various characters were represented here which left them feeling really realistic and exciting, seeing the Polish gang breaking into the house and holding Pete’s family hostage after things turn sour in prison, with Swastika tattoos on the gang members in prison, trying to kill Pete and being violent, to the corrupt warden helping the gang members to hang Pete. In terms of characters, there were a lot of really exciting character models here, most of them don’t let us get close enough to know their names but we know their faces which is enough and that makes them scary - the characters in prison are perfect at helping to get this effect across perfectly by getting in fights, acting suspiciously and being violent. The character roles were clear and they felt really well-executed, many scenes such as when Pete’s wife made him smash the plates whilst she cut her face and called 911 to get him put in prison really felt powerful and had a really strong and positive effect of making us feel shocked at the harsh realities of the criminal life. A strong lead performance by Joel Kinnaman holds the story together and the film moves swiftly at a pace that never drags, but as well as this I thought that Rosamund Pike and Common played their roles really well too - not only did their characters feel realistic but they were also immersive too when they actually shared the same roles as many others in the film. They definitely felt strong here, not necessarily an Oscar-winning performance but still to the high standards we expect from them.
Not only did the characters feel great but the plot did too, I loved how much detail it felt was put into making sure that scenes flowed well together and that they were exciting and fun - seeing scenes like the fights in prison and then how other inmates shrugged it off was a really positive and key way in which the film helped to show exciting scenes as a reality in prison. The plot feels fairly simple too which I like. At the beginning, we see Pete involved in a plan to take down a high ranking Polish mobster but then as a NYPD cop dies then it takes a turn and really opens up the story - so it evolves and is always changing by giving us an unpredictable set of events and using character dialogue to ensure that we can understand what is happening easily. The film's plot feels really immersive too, I love how exciting the gangs feel by how they are basically everywhere, seeing criminals from his gang greet him in prison, and then trying to kill him at the middle of the film, as well as when they try and hang him really helps us to get to grips with how terrifying and violent prison life is - it also uses the emotion of shock to really ensure that the film stays exciting by shocking us with quite violent scenes; the realism of the characters and their gangs and groups in this film is key to making it feel realistic and therefore effective at entertaining us and really immersing us in the characters and the plot. Speaking of the plot, typically a film like this will focus on a single and straightforward plot, the problem with that is that after a while in the film it gets boring having one story to focus on – not the case here. Here we see the NYPD join in the film more prominently throughout the film to investigate the death of their officer from the start of the film, so whilst the FBI and Pete do their thing, we constantly see ‘Common’ getting more and more into the film, not only does this help to keep the film exciting mid-way through by offering a ‘side plot’ but it also helps to bring something new to the film by essentially making the film more realistic and rounding it up better - as eventually ‘Common’ and Pete form together to take down the Polish mob boss in a clever way, throughout the whole film we see the NYPD chasing the FBI down and investigating them which always brings them closer to Pete. The actual plot though is really nice, I love the idea of him being chased by both the police (whilst working with them) as well as the Polish mob, as well as following his family’s story as he tried to break out of jail to save his and his families lives - not only does the plot feel well put together but it is also exciting and feels authentic and immersive too.
This film isn’t all perfect though at all, it definitely has a few issues. The main problem with the film for me is that after the middle of the film where Pete gets put in jail, a lot begins to happen with different characters, different events and this all together becomes way too confusing which means that it is really difficult to properly follow all of them and genuinely understand to the fullest. It’s difficult to understand what is actually going on in the later scenes - such as when Pete hijacks the ambulance after breaking out of prison in it, it just makes no sense at all because so much is going on that just is all jumbled together. This then meant that the film wasn’t as enjoyable in the second half, unless you can follow to a very fine art what happens when multiple storylines are merged into one, and when characters make decisions and do things left right and centre then it will become quite confusing for you. Also, not as important but I encountered some other issues which kind of made me question how realistic the film felt. During the hostage scene, pete takes a corrupt warden hostage to get publicity, he had a series of FBI gunmen sniping him from afar. Surely the snipers would have been given a picture of the target during the scene, Pete swapped clothes with the warden to make the snipers think the warden was the person to shoot, but it just didn’t feel like it made sense because surely they would have a picture of the person they would need to shoot? There wasn’t anything like that, and the shooting team ended up being fooled and getting the wrong person anyways - albeit the scene was exciting. Also, after he was hung (which may be unrealistically long to survive) there was no mark around his neck? Surely if he had been hung for ~20 seconds, if he miraculously survived then he would have a massive mark on his neck - but the next scene after this with him in there was nothing there? The film just felt like far too many problems like this was in it for it to make 100% sense which was a bit of a disappointment, but overall it still feels like a solid film.
Overall, I would give this film an 8. It was really exciting, immersive and enjoyable in the ways we experienced all of the various character types, and the various emotions and things we felt throughout the film - definitely an enjoyable film. But no film which is difficult and confusing to understand can go very far, as this film proves. Not only does the second half of it feel like far too much happens for it to be easily understandable but it just feels like scenes and things are piled into the film with no regard for if they will make sense. There’s also being hardly any marketing for this film, I’ve seen absolutely none at all - how can you expect to make a profit with your film if no one knows it exists?!! I would recommend seeing it though, it’s exciting and feels genuinely good and the plot does feel really immersive which will provide a really good watch, albeit it is a little confusing and puzzling with regards to the storyline.
Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did watching the film and writing this review - I hope you have a lovely day! :)
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