Pros: Intelligent and satirical insider view of Hollywood, some great cameos and hilarious spots, Tim Robbin's acting, Whoopi Goldberg improvisational scenes, Lyle Lovette looking for flies.
Cons: Like any Altman film it can be a little uneven, Not everyone will "get" the insider jokes
While I’ve read plenty about film and get glimpses of the “inside world” of film production from reading Entertainment Weekly and trade journals, gleaning insights from DVD extras, attending screenings to hear the directors talk about their films, and going through the Universal Studios Tour a few times, The Player satirically represents the behind the scenes side of Hollywood more accurately than anything else that has been filmed.
The fact that maverick independent film director Robert Altman put this together is no surprise. Who else could have drawn the sheer amount of cameos from his list of friends to subtly slam things Hollywood in such a laid back California poolside manner?
Synopsis
The fact that The Player still seems fresh after eight years shows that this is a film that will hold up as long as Hollywood continues its usual practices. We are forced to accept the likeable but manipulative Griffin Mills (Tim Robbins) as our protagonist. Mills holds the position of a studio executive who is a writer’s best friend/enemy, as he hears pitches and makes deals on the ones that he likes.
Apparently, one of the rejected writers begins sending Mills threatening postcards like “Your Hollywood is dead” and FAXes that point the way to deadly rattlesnakes. Adding to Mills’ paranoia are the persistent rumors that the smarmy Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) will soon replace Mills, and even obscure writers have heard this story. He decides to track down a potentially disgruntled writer, at a showing of The Bicycle Thief in a Pasadena arthouse.
The meeting ends badly, but Mills hooks up with the writer’s girlfriend, a mysterious Icelandic beauty June Gudmundsdottir (Gretta Scacchi), who paints ice cold blue pictures and never watches movies. Whether this character is real, or is a fantasy of Mills is a point that you can debate with others after seeing the film. There are actually several layers that you can explore that go beyond the relatively straightforward plot.
Insider jokes and cameos galore
Whether you get involved with the actual plot doesn’t matter. The inside jokes within The Player supply the major satisfaction, and the tongue in cheek humor begins full force with the opening 9 minute tracking scene. To call our attention to this listen to Fred Ward talk about the “amazing” opening 6.5 minute tracking scene in Touch of Evil. While Brian De Palma clubs us over the head with his tracking shot “cleverness” in the dreadful Snake Eyes, Altman will have cognoscenti rolling in laughter to his well constructed opening here.
Altman called all his friends to see if they’d appear in cameos, and others called Altman and begged to appear in the film. Thus, you’ll enjoy identifying the huge number of cameos. Some of the more memorable and clever ones occur during the opening through Griffin Mills’ window. First we hear Buck Henry pitch an idea for The Graduate, Part II and then writer Joan Tewkesbury (Nashville) pitches an idea for a film that is not unlike The Gods Must Be Crazy where the Coke bottle is Goldie Hawn.
A couple other notable cameos occur with Burt Reynolds calling Mill an “asshole” under his breath and Cher showing up in a red sequined gown at a black tie event. Altman actually tricked Cher into being deliberately out of synch by telling her to wear red while informing everyone else to dress for a black tie gathering.
The two “film within a film” sequences stand out as well with Lillie Tomlin actually appearing to get ticked off at Scott Glen’s potty mouth during a rehearsal take, and with the hilarious screening near the end of the film starring Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis. Only the dim witted will fail to understand Altman’s rebellious viewpoint of Hollywood after that clip.
Spontaneous humor
As with most every Altman film many scenes have a spontaneous feel to them, precisely because Altman allows his actors to improvise. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Pasadena police office where Whoopi Goldberg breaks into a humorous take on maxi sized tampons and Lyle Lovette swats at a fly and gets off on Freaks -– “One of us, One of us.” Whoopi Goldberg gets some great licks in when she responds to Mills’ remark that she reminds him of someone -- What was he, a black woman?, and a classic retort to the line up witness who swears on her mother’s grave that she’s identified the right man -– “Where the f*ck is your mother buried?”
There’s also the clever reference to Hollywood power meetings. Lunching in the right place to table hop is a tradition, and Larry Levy adds another twist when Mills expresses his surprise that Levy has a drinking problem as he’s en route to an AA meeting: “Well I don't really, but that's where all the deals are being made these days.”
A film about the Hollywood scene wouldn’t be complete without the traditional awards scene where Griffin Mill gives the required “We are about art” speech; however, he has already given us the real formula for a successful Hollywood film: “Suspense, laughter, violence. Hope, heart, nudity, sex. Happy endings. Mainly happy endings”
Does Altman’s film follow the pattern? Does it really matter? It’s plain to see why actors love working with Altman -– he allows them to apply their craft. More movie fans should appreciate Altman as well in The Player -– he allows you to enjoy the experience without insulting your intelligence. And that makes for a happy ending!
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