THE PLAYER
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson
125 min., R, Comedy, 1992 Director: Robert Altman Cast: Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Ireland, Julia Roberts, Fred Ward, Sydney Pollack, Dean Stockwell, Peter Gallagher, Brion James, Cynthia Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Richard E. Grant, Lyle Lovett, Buck Henry, Burt Reynolds, Cher, Bruce Willis, Dina Merrill, Angela Hall, Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Lili Tomlin, Nick Nolte, Elliott Gould, Peter Falk, Karen Black, Robert Carradine, Jeff Goldblum, Ray Walston, David Alan Grier
Movie executive Tim Robbins is receiving hate mail from a writer. Robbins thinks that he has figured out who is doing it. Accidentally the man gets killed. Robbins finds out that the wrong man died, and he has to make sure he doesn't get caught.
THE PLAYER is well worth watching, and joins a line of films that successfully make fun of Hollywood, one of which is the very recent HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD 2 with Ginger Lynn Allen and Eddie Deezen, and the not so recent THE BIG PICTURE with Kevin Bacon and Jennifer Jason Leigh. On a scale of zero to five, I give THE PLAYER a four. THE PLAYER is rated R for female nudity, brief male nudity, violence, explicit language, and adult situations.
I have never really been taken with the characters Tim Robbins plays, or Tim Robbins, himself, for that matter. I especially hated him BULL DURHAM. In this film though (and in CADILLAC MAN), I feel that he did a really good job. Maybe if he keeps acting like this I will start to like him.
The biggest problem with the film is that some of the cast, like Fred Ward, Tim Robbins, and Whoopi Goldberg, play characters and others, like Julia Roberts, Burt Reynolds, and Bruce Willis, play themselves. When a character comes on, at first you don't know whether they are playing themselves, or somebody else. I think that if they had straightened this out, the movie would have run smoother. I don't know how they really could have fixed it up other than having unknowns playing the characters and the knowns playing themselves.
The cast does a great job, although I don't know how many were just being themselves, and how many were really acting. The story was well written, and the film was great fun to watch. Earlier this year THE PLAYER was playing at major theaters. Now it is in small second run theaters, and soon it will be coming to video (and laser disk). If you want to see this film, I suggest that if you can see it in a theater on the big screen that you do so, because on a small screen you might miss something happening. That may no longer be a possibility for you. If you haven't seen this film I suggest that you do, because it is definitely worth it.
Ken J. blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
[Moderator's note: In the line of pictures that make fun of Hollywood, there is also HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD itself, to which HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD 2 is a sequel. The original was co-directed by Joe Dante and is his first film.] .
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