A little over an hour into “The Informer”, Pete Koslow (an excellent Joel Kinnaman) makes a call from jail. He’s trying to get on to his FBI handler to sort out the parameters of his role as an informant. But as the call goes on, he realises that he’s in over his head. The realisation hits like a ton of bricks and as the camera stays, mercilessly, on Kinnaman’s face we watch him trying to make sense of the dizzying turn of events. It’s the turning point in a film that has already had its share of turning points, with more to come, and one of the sharpest moments in the well-paced thriller. There’s a similar moment in the police-drama, “Black and Blue”. In this case, policewoman Alicia West (played by Naomie Harris in fine form) is confiding her recently learned knowledge to someone she trusts. She’s uncovered a ring of corrupt cops in her department and is trying to turn them in, but as she sorts out her feelings, she realises that her confidante is equally compromised, and like in “The Informer” the camera stays on her face as the horrible truth dawns. The fact that both thrillers feature their protagonists coming-to-grips with betrayal is not incidental, but speaks to a larger relationship between the two films.
