The Player

Come next year, when I am trying to devise a list of the best films of the 90's, Robert Altman's "The Player" will be near the top of my list. This film skillfully creates a central plot around Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) (who hears about 125 movie pitches per day), a studio executive who is being threatened by a writer whose script or idea he likely brushed off. But what is even more brilliant about "The Player" is everything going on peripherally to the main plot; all the references to studio techniques of film-making, foreign film movements, homages and Old Hollywood vs. New Hollywood. The film is multi-layered, yet everything that we view falls neatly into the formula which Hollywood film-making survives by. What we see in the duration of "The Player" would potentially make a perfect pitch for a movie. This may sound confusing, but watch the entire film, and you will immediately know what I mean.

The film begins with a stunning homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope", an approximately eight minute long take where the camera moves freely around a studio encountering many people in the midst of their everyday routines. For example, we come across a couple discussing how Hollywood film is now much like MTV "cut, cut, cut". One of the characters even uses the example of "Rope" to illustrate his point. "Rope" is approximately a ninety minute film that appears to have been shot all in one take. Of course, it wasn't done in one take, as reels of film at that time were only ten minutes long. If one watches the film very closely, it can be determined where the cuts are made.

In the duration of the same take, we encounter Griffin Mill conducting business in his office. People walk into his office pitching movie ideas. It is here that we begin to learn about populist Hollywood film-making. Ideas, not stories or scripts are pitched to executives "in 25 words or less". Almost always, the ideas thrown out are based on previous films (e.g. "someone always gets killed at the end of a political thriller") and even combinations of previous films (e.g. "It's Pretty Woman meets Out of Africa"). When we see the usual films that are released into theaters each week, it is not difficult to believe that this is the way in which they are conceived. The usual Hollywood formula entails sex, violence, familiarity and most important of all "happy endings, a movie always has to have a happy ending".

"The Player" is filled with loads of Hollywood stars, most of them playing themselves. Jeff Goldblum, Malcolm McDowell, John Cusack, Angelica Huston, and Burt Reynolds to name a few. Many of them are encountered at restaurants during lunch and at night time Hollywood gatherings, where the topic of conversation is always movies. Near the beginning of the film, Griffin suggests that he and his lunch guests talk about something else. "We're all educated adults". Of course no one says anything. Their lives are so indoctrinated by Hollywood, they do not know what else to talk about.

Right from the beginning Griffin receives numerous postcards threatening his life. He begins to suspect a certain writer and goes to his house one night to confront him. The man turns out not to be home, but there is an incredible scene where Griffin talks with the man's girlfriend on the phone while voyeuristically watching her through the window. This is an extraordinary symbolization of the voyeuristic essence that goes along with watching a film, or the notion of scopophilia to be precise. The idea behind the concept of scopophilia is that the cinema constructs the spectator as a subject; the beholder of the gaze, who has an intense desire to look. The cinema places viewers in a voyeuristic position in that the viewer watches the film unseen in a dark room. While Griffin is watching the girl as he speaks with her, it is night time and he remains unseen to her. This scenario metaphorically represents the theater and the film.

In the duration of Griffin's conversation on the phone, he finds out that the man he is looking for is watching "The Bicycle Thief" in an art-house theater in Pasadena. This film in itself represents the first contrast to Hollywood that we see in "The Player". Vittorio DeSica's "The Bicycle Thief" was part of a movement that lasted from 1942 to 1952 called ‘Italian Neo-Realism", whose other main exponents were Rossellini and Visconti. Rossellini called neo-realism both a moral and an aesthetic cinema. Neo-realism, to a great extent owes much of its existence to film-makers' displeasure at the restrictions placed on freedom of expression. This film movement is quite different from the modern Hollywood formula of film-making. When Griffin first meets the man he suspects is sending the postcards, he suggests that perhaps they could do a remake of "The Bicycle Thief". The man responds with "yeah sure, you'd probably want to give it a happy ending".

Also interesting in "The Player" is one of the studio executives suggestions to newspapers as a source for script ideas. This serves to contrast Old Hollywood versus New Hollywood. In the older days of studio film, Warner Brothers (one of the studio's of middle-class America) would produce films with ideas seemingly drawn from real life or from the headlines of major newspapers. This gives us the sense that often Hollywood is stuck for original ideas, so ideas from the past re-circulate themselves.

I have touched on only a few of the many interesting references that run peripherally to the main plot of "The Player". The great thing is that even if you do not catch all the film references that I have been discussing, it is still enjoyable. When I first saw the film, I was really young and did not know much about movies, but yet I enjoyed it thoroughly. Now, it is one of my favorites. I definitely recommend it to anyone who has a keen interest in film.

**** out of ****

"The Player" is bigger than the sum total of it's ingredients, because this Robert Altman classic has got so many links pointing to movie history that it is dizzying. It is all about Hollywood and the ins and outs of the movie industry. But let me first focus on the story for now, for those who just wanna see a suspenseful who dunnit story.

"The Player" is a slowburning, yet suspenseful detective story, with funny breathers scattered throughout. Whoopi Goldberg swinging her tampon is one of those hilarious scenes that lights up the seriousness of this detective story about the death threats. It's a who dunnit, with some jokes and with lots of parodies on the inside world of Hollywood. Lots and I really mean lots and lots of actors play themselves in this movie. Everybody wanted to be part of this movie that could be described as "a chainsaw cutting down Hollywood's image"

What's the story about? Tim Robbins plays a hollywood producer elbowing his way to the top. This selfish movie producer will do anything to gain more succes in the superficial world of Hollywood and he is hated by many writers and actors, who were ridiculed or rejected by him. This obnoxious movie producer starts getting death threats mailed to him by postcards. The death threats get more serious every week and Tim Robbins gets desperate to find out which psychotic writer is sending these threats.

"The Player" at first depicts the search for this mysterious person who is sending these evil death threats, but later on the movie takes a dramatic turn which I wont reveal here to avoid spoilers. As I said before, it is a slowburning story, yet slowly climaxing into a very suspenseful ending. Over 2 hours long. But I enjoyed every minute of it and I must have seen it over 10 times by now.

Acting is not particularly great, yet rather funny, in a more amusing satirical way. It is especially funny to see all those well known actors (in the nineties) walk by in this movie playing themselves. That is just eye candy. Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis among others in cameo roles, hilarous stuff!

This direction by Robert Altman is to be highly complimented for many things. Movie geeks would have a field day analyzing this satire on Hollywood. Read all the other reviews, people just have a field day here on imdb analyzing this Hollywood satire. Director Robert Altman made a very suspenseful yet funny detective story that has stood the test of time. More than 20 years later this movie is still a thrill and joy to watch...

Robert Altman gets under my skin. His films are worthy of great respect, yet they are frequently as irritating as they are brilliant. The Player is, as much as Short Cuts, a quintessential Altman film. It is also one of the best roles Tim Robbins has ever enjoyed.

This film is about Hollywood's dark underbelly. The Player eviscerates its subject by twisting justice, political gamesmanship and artistic integrity into new configurations. For non-film-buffs or non-professionals some of the humor may seem too subtle to notice. To film buffs and insiders, the humor is totally over the top.

Robbins plays a young studio exec who is playing the game to win and seems, at least part of the time, to have a conscience. Everything is going along fine for him until he starts receiving threatening calls and letters from a writer whose screenplays he has rejected, and an arch-rival is promoted to a position just above his own. Paranoia and real danger seem in the periphery of every scene in his life, as the make-believe of his industry and the reality of his life begin to blend freely.

Robbins makes a character who could easily have been totally unlikeable somehow sympathetic. Despite his amazing performance, liking the character makes you feel as if you should go stand in a shower and exfoliate for an hour or so. He is supported by excellent supporting work all around. Especially good are the two major women's roles - played by Greta Scachi and Bonnie Sherrow, and veteran camp character Dean Stockwell.

The photography is liberally and amusingly lifted from several classic thrillers, mysteries and dramas, and comes off fresh and original - not at all like a DePalmaesque bit of visual plagiarism. And the pace is brisk.

The Player is probably my favorite Altman film, and it is easily my favorite Tim Robbins film. It's entertaining, intelligent and, well, it has a bad attitude. See it some night when you're angry and you need a good dark laugh.

I am surprised that the IMDb trivia section is so short for this film. After all, it's jammed full of references to earlier films and is full of actor cameos. Because of this, it's clearly a film that bears re- watching in order to catch the many small details many would often miss. Also, because this film is ultra-famous, already has many reviews and is beloved by many, I'll keep my review relatively short. Suffice to say that it's a film lovers and insiders dream movie.

The film begins with an insanely difficult scene that sets the stage for the film. It's all in one long take where the camera moves all over a wide area on a film studio lot. But instead of being intimate, it feels almost like the viewer is hiding and peering at the many different things occurring simultaneously. This is brilliant, as the film does have a real voyeuristic quality...with many shots that are not traditionally framed but are as if you are watching in the near distance.

What follows is a very dark anti-fairy tale set in modern Hollywood. Instead of the usual story of a person working hard and doing good and ultimately being rewarded, this is pretty much the opposite. With a total jerk-face (Tim Robbins) screwing people over and even killing someone...and the consequences of this. It's obviously meant as an attack on many Hollywood types--the users, the superficial and the vaguely talented. Overall, a superb film that works very well due to wonderful direction and a black hole-dark script filled with cynicism.

For anyone who loves movies, "The Player" is a treat.

To start, the screenplay is first-rate. The plot that holds the entire film together is superbly crafted; very few films leave you guessing right to the end as this one does. The finer details also shine through, such as the sales pitch scenes, which are inarguably classic (i.e. "The Graduate II").

I loved the attention to detail in "The Player". One can find a new detail every time one watches the film. For example, the opening sequence is a very long, continuous shot during which characters are discussing Hitchcock's "Rope", which appears to be a movie filmed all in one continuous shot. The sheer number of cameos in "The Player" makes it difficult to list all of them, so I won't even try.

"The Player" is one film that sets out to skewer Hollywood and actually succeeds. One only has to view the Bruce Willis/Julia Roberts sequence in order to understand this. My hat goes off to Robert Altman for making another excellent film.