Player (1992)

A wicked satirical fable about corporate backstabbing--and actual murder--in the movie business, The Player benefits from director Robert Altman's long and bitter experience working within, and without, the Hollywood studio system. Rising young executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is tormented by threats from an anonymous writer. The pressure and paranoia build until Griffin loses control one night and semi-accidentally kills screenwriter David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio), who may or may not be the source of the threats. From that point, Griffin's life and career begin to fall apart. In keeping with the ironic spirit of the film itself, Altman's scathingly funny attack on the moral bankruptcy of Hollywood was embraced by many of the same people it was intended to savage, and restored the director to commercial and critical favor. Michael Tolkin adapted the screenplay from his own novel, and the movie is studded with cameos by famous faces, many of whom appear as themselves. The digital video disc includes a commentary track with Altman and Tolkin, some deleted scenes, a documentary about Altman, and a key to help identify more than 50 of the picture's big-name cameos. --Jim Emerson Amazon.com essential video

Great Satire on Hollywood

This is one of the most underrated films in Hollywood about Hollywood. The main characters in the film give excellent performances and there are enough cameo appearances to make this one of the most star filled films of all time. The only performance that was lost on me was Whoopie Goldberg's which I felt was too arrogant and condescending to be convincing. Goldberg couldn't resist making a predictable jab about the Rodney King riot, the only instance in which I felt the film unsuccessfully attempted to mix real life politics and entertainment. Aside from this, the film delivers on all counts, taking us through the forbidden, seldom seen world of film making, in which everyone seems to be expendable and no one seems to maintain control. If there is a lesson to be learned here, it's that life presents all of us with luck, circumstance and opportunity. And no one understands this better than Hollywood. December 7, 2008

Gaping and yawning on the deserted sound stage

A parody of Hollywood, once more, Gosh. Nothing new will ever be done on that subject. It is a rattlesnake nest and nothing else. Only the details may change but the wider and the finer pictures are always the same. This particular film what's more is showing that everyone hates everyone and that everything is crooked and that all the every's you may think of are all berserk and warped. So what! What's the point? Is there a point? A no star film that ends up with stars. A bad ending that becomes good , they say happy, I know. An author who sells his skin for a million dollars. An exec that sells his soul for ten times more. Each million of those ten millions are extracted from the bones of one body turned into corpse. Morbid, morbid, morbid ! You kill someone and then within a week you make his girlfriend pregnant to compensate for the death and then you drop your own girlfriend because she is becoming too much of an inside job whereas the new one is outlandish and in a completely different job. A witness in a line-up who goes for the cop in the line-up who is one foot shorter than the murderer - and we know who he is - and meager and dark-skinned, in one word just the absolute opposite of the murderer she has in front of her own eyes and with a cop who is definitely leading her. What a witness. She saw nothing. Such a film can only get a prize in Cannes, France, because that's the kind of melodramatic satire the French can swallow and yet pretend it is fresh milk. And what's more it takes the audience for retarded baboons. Who is still afraid of the big bad Hollywood rattlesnake? Who is indeed? A big yawning deception.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
August 6, 2008

A smart satire that hits its mark and wins my respect...

I know that I really need to see more Altman. I had only seen (up until this weekend) `Gosford Park' and `A Prairie Home Companion', neither of which really impressed me (I liked `Gosford Park'; didn't love it, and `A Prairie Home Companion' was just a mess) but I hear all these great things about him and so I keep telling myself that I need to just load up my Netflix queue with his work and have at it. Anyways, Saturday night I happened to catch `The Player' on IFC while I was up walking my daughter to sleep and since I do happen to enjoy Tim Robbins (magnificent actor) I decided to give it a try. I was immediately drawn in by the opening tracking scene consisting of interloping conversations (all of which were adlibbed) and from then on I was sold.

`The Player' is a satire, so keep that in mind when watching this movie. Satires have a tendency to do one of two extremes for me; they either really nail it or they really blow it. I have yet to find a happy medium. Thankfully `The Player' really nails it, especially as its second half gets underway. The film tells the story of Griffin Mill, a studio executive who doesn't have the greatest of reputations; that is to say that his personality tends to rub some people the wrong way. Proof of this very fact are the many death threats Griffin keeps receiving, threats that start to ware on his sanity. When Griffin thinks he's found the source of these threats he takes impulsive action, action that results in murder, a murder he must then cover up.

After the murder, Griffin's life starts to unravel as he struggles to keep his position at work as well as keep his relationship with girlfriend Bonnie all the while falling for June Gudmundsdottir, the beautiful girlfriend of Griffin's victim. Things become even more complicated when the police begin investigating the murder and it becomes apparent that Griffin killed the wrong man.

`The Player' though is really a movie within a movie, or a plot within a plot. Sure, the dominant plot here revolves around Griffin committing murder and `getting away with it' but the real plot, the real point, is the exposure of the dark side of Hollywood, the backstabbing that takes place within the dog-eat-dog world of corporate politics and business practice; where one day your hot, the next your not and you can't do a thing about it.

The movie, honestly, lives and dies with Tim Robbins, in that without his stellar performance the film would have failed. Robbins is brilliant as Griffin Mill, perfectly grasping his deadpan detachment from his surroundings and then slowly slipping into his selfish and mechanical desperation. I just found so many layers within his seemingly one-note performance. Greta Scacchi is stunning as June. She has an air of mystery that makes it easy to see why Griffin becomes so infatuated with her in the first place. Cynthia Stevenson is also great as Bonnie, witty and funny and charming. Whoopi Goldberg is hilarious (when is she not?) as Detective Susan Avery (I just love that `Oscar' scene; priceless) and Peter Gallagher is effective as Larry Levy, Griffin's office threat. Fred Ward rubbed me wrong here; I just didn't like his humor, and Vincent D'Onofrio's natural nervous demeanor played against him here. I normally love him but I found him a bit too annoying here (but his character is short lived...).

Altman, it must be said, has a wonderful way of placing the pieces of his film together here. I saw it in `Gosford Park' as well, but here to an even greater degree. The film just flows beautifully, from one scene to the next, and he has a way of extracting the right emotions from his scenes. Sometimes those emotions are unexpected, but they are always genuine. Each scene is beautifully crafted, never feeling out of place or pointless.

As a side point of interest, `The Player' has one of the most articulately constructed love scenes I've ever seen in a film. There is nothing truly explicit; in fact the entire scene is one long close up of Tim Robbins' sweaty face, but it is completely titillating. I never thought I'd find Tim Robbins attractive, but that scene is flawlessly exciting. The scene is memorable and truly anticipated and one that adds layers to the relationship budding between the characters.

The script is witty and tightly woven, interesting and engrossing and complimented beautifully by the well rounded performances of the cast. Unlike `Gosford Park' or `A Prairie Home Companion', this is Robbins' movie as apposed to being a true ensemble piece. Yes, there are lots of actors here but none have the weight of Robbins' character thus none deserve the amount of attention he deserves. Robbins' is marvelous here, yet another brilliant performance in his already extensively phenomenal resume. I highly recommend this film for it is fresh and fun and extremely smart. May 19, 2008

Clever but shallow satire on Hollywood's dark side...

I'm not a Robert Altman fan but THE PLAYER ranks among the best of his crop of overpraised films. At least the performances are first rate without all the overlapping dialog that one had to endure in GOSFORD PARK, but the satire is laid on pretty thick even after the brutal accidental murder scene.

TIM ROBBINS plays a Hollywood producer who is unable to shake off the persistence of an aspiring writer without resorting to killing him in a moment of desperation and anger. He gets control of himself thereafter and is able to play innocent, especially after a line-up of suspects including him fails to produce a witness who could identify him as being near the scene of the crime.

The biggest in-joke of all is Altman's decision to have a marathon lineup of stars on the sidelines, popping up at every other moment when least suspected, and often with no more than a few seconds of screen time. The film within a film (a sub-plot bearing resemblance to the real film plot) is cleverly used to provide a neat finish to the tale. And in doing so, it utilizes (very briefly) the services of stars like SUSAN SARANDON, PETER FALK, JULIA ROBERTS and BRUCE WILLIS.

GRETA SCACCHI, PETER GALLAGHER and DEAN STOCKWELL do well in the most prominent supporting roles but it's TIM ROBBINS who owns the spotlight throughout and he's excellent as the conflicted man who commits a crime and gets away with it in a Hollywood film colony that has no conscience.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG's role as Detective Susan Avery is unforgivably coarse and totally unbelievable as a woman whose professional conduct borders on burlesque. Equally ineffective is LYLE LOVETT as a fellow detective amused by her shenanigans.

There are plenty of faults, but the film manages to hold the interest with its unique blend of suspense, humor, satire and tragedy. It's a clever piece of work but heavily dependent on the audience getting all the inside jokes about Hollywood and its celebrated denizens.

May 19, 2008

Altman taking on Hollywood

Robert Altman, director known for his artistic sensibility is taking on old-fashioned Hollywood, where the success of the films is defined by the happy endings and household name actors featured in them. This story features successful Hollywood executive whose job it is to listed to writer's pitches, hoping for the next big movie hit. He has it all, place in the fancy restaurant, pretty girlfriend and crowds of screenwriters in his office hoping to sell his studio their screenplays. He is also threatened by the newcomer in the business that may as well force him out of job. As that is not enough, this executive is recipient of the threatening postcards from the writer with a grudge. As the unexpected turn of events unfold, we get ourselves wrapped in a story of survival of this same excutive. He is fighting for his job, for his life out of imprisonment for life and for the new girlfriend that shares his secret of murder of her former boyfriend (the screenwriter). It almost feels like one is watching Emil Zola's "Therese Raquin" story where old mother is replaced by greedy, self-indulgent and self-promoting Hollywood characters. And, oh yes, in spite of happy ending, there is a darkness about this movie that keeps us thinking about it long afterwards and asking questions about life and people around us. October 8, 2007

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