To watch this film from start to finish without bursting into laughter at some point requires almost an act of faith, as one has to keep saying to oneself, "it's old", "it's a classic", "be kind", not because the movie is so bad, but because at its best it's so good. This is one dated movie. It's also a classic, if a tarnished one. I'm not inclined to laugh at people anyway, on principle, and I get more than a little irritated when others do so. To make fun of The Informer to my mind is a little like giggling at an idiot savant when he dribbles his orange juice all over the tablecloth. Yes, one says to oneself, he is an idiot, and yet when he's on top of his game he is also a true savant. The same is true for The Informer, which is on occasion very dreadful indeed, and yet it boasts splendid photography, some fine acting, a wonderful score and a good, decent simple story. In the end, which I won't give away, politics, religion and psychology come together, in a church, in such a way as to make the scene seem corny and over the top, and yet so is life sometimes. Uneducated people of simple faith behave differently from us (presumably brilliant) modern folks, and the scene isn't so much unbelievable (I buy it, but I know the Irish) as embarrassing. Yet people do behave that way, they do say things like that. Not everyone is hip, and it may not even be desirable for everyone to be hip. Are people today so much superior to those of seventy or eighty years ago? And in what way? I don't think so. We're just different. Now go watch the movie.
Review of The Informer
