”The Player`s” cult status is already guaranteed in New York and Los Angeles, where its wrist-slapping satire of the movie business will flatter everyone`s sense of being an insider. It remains to be seen how it will fare in the Midwest, where its in-jokes won`t work and its references will seem hopelessly remote.
It isn`t a movie that has a whole lot else going for it.
As directed by Robert Altman from a screenplay by Michael Tolkin, ”The Player” is a haphazard, uneven piece of work that expresses only contempt for its characters and musters no real belief in its story line.
Like Altman`s ”Nashville” of 1975, though not nearly as cleverly structured or professionally staged, ”The Player” is a panoramic look at a particularly symptomatic American subculture, organized around a symbolic act of violence.
The attempted assassination of ”Nashville” here becomes a successful homicide, committed in the heat of the moment by an embattled Hollywood production executive, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), against the person of a resentful screenwriter, David Kahane (Vincent D`Onofrio), whom Mill believes to be the author of a series of angry, threatening postcards.
The postcards have been calling Mill to account for his crimes against the art of the cinema, which are seen to include imposing inappropriate stars, softening daring conceptions and insisting on inane happy endings.
Mill, in short, has not been making movies like Vitorio De Sica`s neo-realist classic, ”The Bicycle Thief” (which is quoted extensively and admiringly as the film that is playing in the revival theater where Mill meets Kahane), but more on the order of ”Die Hard,” which is wittily quoted at the film`s climax.
Since this is a claim that most production executives would be proud to make, it can be seen why ”The Player” has failed to generate any real resentment in Hollywood, but only mild, rather self-flattering pangs of guilt. The film`s funniest, nastiest jokes come in the first act, when Altman and Tolkin are sketching in the ambiance and building up to the catharic murder. Mill, played with an eerie calm by the talented Robbins, is a master juggler, keeping a number of colleagues up in the air, including an executive assistant who is also his lover (Cynthia Stevenson), a cold-blooded corporate head (Brion James, an actor who usually plays psycho-killers) and an ambitious rival (Peter Gallagher), who has recently been hired from another studio with accompanying rumors that he is Mill`s replacement.
But after the murder, the movie loses most of its tension and pace, degenerating into a tedious, insincere love story between Mill and the murdered man`s mistress, June Gudmundsdottir (Greta Scacchi), an eerily idealistic artist who claims to be from Iceland.
There are signs that screenwriter Tolkin meant June to be an icon of otherworldly innocence and purity-Mill`s salvation, in some quasi-religious sense-but Altman, typically, has chosen to make a snide joke of her, ridiculing the character for her pretentious and amateurish paintings while suggesting that her motives may be venal after all.
Atman`s free-ranging sarcasm thus leaves the film without any human center. The attempts to build suspense around the lovers-Will they get together? Will they get away?-inevitably fall flat, thanks to Altman`s open contempt for the pair.
Whoopi Goldberg, entering late as a suspicious Pasadena police officer, provides a necessary shot of adrenalin in the very sluggish last act, though the most entertaining presence in the film at that point is the sardonic, mockingly laid-back Lyle Lovett, as Goldberg`s leg man.
Altman`s technical abilities, never great, are strained to the limit by the film`s clearly minimal budget. The lighting, by cinematographer Jean Lapine, would look hasty and crude in a porno film, while Altman`s blocking remains as chaotic as ever. His actors mill around aimlessly and nervously front of the camera, as if they hadn`t even been told where to stand.
It may also be the budget`s fault that the details seem so wrong. No Hollywood executive on Griffin`s level would wear an ill-fitting, American-made business suit, or have a cinder-block office with tattered old movie posters (from British films, yet) hanging on the walls. Rothko or Dine is more the norm.
Such missteps drain ”The Player” of much of its authority, though its entertainment value really depends on the dozens of stars Altman has convinced to make cameo appearances. The guest celebrities range from the obvious
(Altman regulars Sally Kellerman, Rene Auberjonois, Paul Dooley and Elliott Gould) to the exalted (Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis, Nick Nolte, Cher), to the wholly unaccountable (Harry Belafonte).
It`s strange, though, that the ultimate appeal of this ”insider” film should rest so firmly on old-fashioned star gazing.
”The Player”
(STAR)(STAR)
Directed by Robert Altman; screenplay by Michael Tolkin, from his novel;
photographed by Jean Lepine; edited by Geraldine Peroni; production designed by Stephen Altman; music by Thomas Newman; produced by David Brown, Nick Wechsler and Tolkin. A Fine Line Features release; opens April 24 at the Water Tower, Webster Place and outlying theaters. Running time: 2:03. MPAA rating:
R. Strong language, adult situations, violence.
THE CAST
Griffin Mill…………………………………………Tim Robbins
June Gudmundsdottir…………………………………Greta Scacchi
Walter Stuckel…………………………………………Fred Ward
Detective Avery…………………………………..Whoopi Goldberg
Larry Levy……………………………………….Peter Gallagher
Joel Levison…………………………………………Brion James
