A high-power, high-calibre cast of heavyweights and scene-stealing character performers wanders through Barry Levinson's latest in search of a plot.
Watch film trailers now »In fact, the biggest crisis that afflicts fading producer Ben (Robert De Niro) in this exposé of the machinations of the industry town that is Los Angeles is that a belligerent megastar (Bruce Willis playing himself) refuses to shave off his beard.
Hollywood eats itself in What Just Happened. It's another play on The Player with a touch of Wag the Dog (another Levinson offering) and flavouring courtesy of IVANSXTC. That cannibalistic approach should serve the story well but crucially it lacks bite and any sense of the ritual bloodletting that surrounds the pre-production of any big flick.
Ben is a veteran producer who's been around long enough to know where all the bodies are buried. He's also a diplomat and a politician who walks a fine line between pragmatism and sycophancy. And he's in trouble. His marriage is in tatters, the director of his next picture is British, precious and a loony and the film is showing all the signs of being a turkey.
Then there's the new film – a big studio movie set to star Bruce Willis. But Willis has spent six months cultivating an impressive piece of beardwork and is loath to shave it off. Suddenly Ben's life becomes an elaborate tango as he dances his way from egotistical star to agent via a ball-breaking studio chief and Ben's tired wife.
En route he encounters a screenwriter who may or may not be romancing his estranged wife. Juggling so many balls means Ben is destined to drop some; the trick is in knowing which ones will hit the ground.
Written by Art (The Untouchables, Heat) Linson, What Just Happened aspires to be deeper, funnier and more Machiavellian than it actually is. Certainly it is smart, witty and captivating in its stone-lifting approach to the daily goings-on surrounding an average blockbuster. If the impressive cast is anything to go by, then some of it – much of it – must be based on real life. Bruce Willis joins Sean Penn in poking fun at his real-life and on-screen personas. Like John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich, he gleefully immolates himself.
Then there is Michael Wincott as the cockney director whose film is causing everyone such problems. A nervous, neurotic, pill-popping drunk in perpetual meltdown, he presents the film with its finest performance and outshines every one of
his co-stars.
Given that they include John Turturro, Robin Wright Penn, Stanley Tucci and Catherine Keener, such praise is not easily given.
This is a bright film but it is not in the same league as predecessors that occupy the same territory. What just happened?
The simple truth is: not all that much.
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