Friday
17Oct2008
Movie Review - 'What Just Happened'
Friday, October 17, 2008 at 12:11AM | What Just Happened
Starring Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, and Robin Wright-Penn  |
Usually, although not without exception, movies about
movies are a bit like watching an entire self-serving industry masturbate for
two hours. They tend to be way too inside, talking about things most members in
the audience can't relate to. It's like they've made a movie for themselves and
you're not even supposed to get it.The Player is a good film about Hollywood that also realizes you have to draw an audience in with the characters, and put them into situations they can care about. Even still, when it was released in 1991, how many people honestly knew what the hell Fred Ward was talking about when he described the opening crane shot in Touch of Evil while director Robert Altman was executing a very similar technique? How many know what it means now?
What Just Happened is really inside, too, but it's entertaining enough to overcome most of the trouble spots. It's a look at a couple of weeks in the life of Ben (Robert De Niro), a producer whose career is on the ropes. His new film didn't get a favorable response from a test audience, which is a big mess because the movie will debut at Cannes later that month. Sean Penn, playing himself, stars in the movie within the movie. Strangely, Robin Wright-Penn does not play Penn's real-life wife, but De Niro's estranged movie wife, and I must confess you never get over that bit of casting.
Once we know the rules of the game, that Ben has a few days to fix his movie before the world premiere in France, then the inside Hollywood stuff isn't very consequential. Barry Levinson and writer Art Linson instead show us the labyrinth of Ben's life, which could be happening to anyone. He drives his daughter to school, then picks up his other kids from his second wife and drives them to school. He navigates strained business ties with oddball characters like Dick Bell (John Turturro), who plays Bruce Willis' agent.
The best way to describe What Just Happened is to say it's not a Hollywood farce but rather a farce that takes place in Hollywood. De Niro, who has reinvented himself as a polished comedic actor over the past decade, is very likable, and I liked Michael Wincott as the caricature of a brooding director and Catherine Keener as the ball-busting studio head.
The appeal is still probably limited for this movie, but it at least knows that much and tries to engage you in other ways.
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