The Informer (1935)
Directed By: John Ford
Written By: Dudley Nichols
Starring: Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster
Length: 91 min.
Genre: Drama
Based On: The Novel "The Informer" (1925) by Liam O'Flaherty
1936 Oscar Winner: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Victor McLaglen)
1936 Oscar Winner: Best Director (John Ford)
1936 Oscar Winner: Best Writing, Screenplay (Dudley Nichols)
1936 Oscar Winner: Best Music Score (Max Steiner)
1936 Oscar Nominee: Best Picture
1936 Oscar Nominee: Best Film Editing
Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) informs on a friend of his, Frankie, to the police because he's destitute and is desperate for money, not only for himself but for his girlfriend. His friend ends up being killed by police. Gypo tells his IRA buddies that it was a man named Mulligan who informed on Frankie. But throughout the rest of the movie, they are suspicious of Gypo.
The plot moved at a glacial pace, there's no real character development of any kind, it's just a terrible person getting drunk and either trying to deflect blame from his IRA friends or living it up in bars throughout the city and in general being a brutish thug. Yeah, it has an ending someone might point to and say "but he changed!"...did he though? I was not enjoying the movie at all but it did have a chance near the end to have some redeeming quality but they just doubled down on how horrible of a person the main character was. AND THEN the final scene was so heavy handed that it managed to make me hate the movie even more.
This movie was about as boring as a movie could be without me turning it off halfway. But again, my opinion is a minority opinion. Not only did the movie win a ton of awards and praise during it's time, it has generally high ratings from people watching today.
My Rating: 2 / 10
IMDB Rating: 7.4 (6.2k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 94% Critics (15-1), 77% of Audience (1k ratings)