Warning: This article contains spoilers.
Heo Sung-tae, widely known for his serious gangster role in Squid Game Season 1 as Jang Deok Su (Player 101), takes on a different role in South Korean comedy film, The Informant. This time, he’s a blundering detective, Oh Nam-hyeok, who gets demoted while his peers are promoted. In order to earn a promotion, he partners with Cho Tae-bong (Jo Bok-rae), a small-time criminal who offers to become an informant to help the officer catch bigger criminals. While they’ve both agreed to join forces, the pair don’t entirely trust each other.
One day, Detective Oh means to enter Tae-bong’s hideout, but he accidentally breaks into the wrong apartment and discovers a huge crime organization that even has ties to the police. From there, Detective Oh, his colleague Lee So-yeong (Seo Min-joo), and Tae-bong work together to track down who’s running this crime ring.
Packed with humorous action scenes, ridiculous antics, and unrequited love, the film is a lighthearted watch. The story begins a little too fast-paced, jumping back and forth between Tae-bong’s small crime ring and the larger, more nefarious crime syndicate. However, things begin to make more sense as the film progresses and things start unfolding at a slower pace. Even then, the levels of corruption and character relations are still a bit confusing. Once you’re able to catch on to who reports to who and who’s in charge of what, the rest of the film becomes much easier to understand and enjoy.
In The Informant, Heo Sung-tae showed off a new side to himself, portraying the clueless and clumsy detective effectively. Additionally, the cast had great chemistry, portraying the unique dynamic between colleagues, superiors, and crushes in the silly film. Delivering everything from goofy dialogue to physical comedy, the movie is sure to garner laughter.
