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The Player (New Line Platinum Series) (Widescreen) (Special edition)

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Description

    Robert Altman takes a scalpel to Hollywood ethics in the 1990s (or the lack thereof) in his acidic satire The Player, adapted from Michael Tolkin's novel. (Tolkin also wrote the screenplay.) The film concerns a sleek and smooth Hollywood studio executive who starts receiving death threats from a disgruntled writer because he has committed the ultimate Hollywood sin -- he promised the writer he would call him back and he never did. This is particularly ironic because the studio executive, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), is considered "writer-friendly," spending his days listening to pitches from such noted screenwriters as Buck Henry, who is pushing "The Graduate, Part II" and Alan Rudolph, who is hawking a Bruce Willis action film described as "Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate." But The Player finds Griffin's comfortable life style in danger of collapse. He is trying to find a way to unload his girlfriend (Cynthia Stevenson) whose independence and intelligence make her a poor candidate for a trophy wife. More importantly, it seems that Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), a slippery executive from Twentieth Century Fox, is angling for his job. And then there are those nasty postcards and faxes from a screenwriter threatening to kill him. Altman cast over 65 stars in cameo roles as texture for his scabrous tale. Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Features

Awards

    Awards: Golden Globe Awards (1), Cannes Film Festival Film Festival (2)
    Nominations: Academy Awards (3), Golden Globe Awards (2)
    Nominee: Academy Awards Best Director 1992, Robert Altman
    Nominee: Golden Globe Awards Best Director 1992, Robert Altman
    Nominee: Golden Globe Awards Best Screenplay 1992, Michael Tolkin

Additional Information

  • DPCI: 246-00-0756
  • ASIN: B002HMLOX6
  • Catalog #: 11322868
  • Item can not be gift wrapped.

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Half the fun of The Player is watching director Robert Altman and screenwriter Michael Tolkin repeatedly and enthusiastically bite the hands that feed them -- or, in Altman's case, stopped feeding him: it was his first film for an American studio in seven years, marking his commercial and critical comeback after some interesting but inconsistent pictures following the box-office disappointment of Popeye (1980). The Player can be read as an indictment of the amorality of all American business in the 1980s and 1990s, but it's Hollywood that takes it on the chin, and the parade of movie notables in cameo roles suggests that plenty of people in town were sympathetic to the message. Like most of Altman's films, The Player features a superb cast that brings out the best in each other, notably a memorably slimy Tim Robbins , Greta Scacchi at her mysterious and seductive best, Vincent D'Onofrio as the suitably angry writer, and Richard E. Grant in a scene-stealing turn as a man who won't let his integrity get in the way of a deal. Also like Altman's best work, The Player twists and turns along the way, providing yet ****** all the elements of a successful Hollywood movie: violence, but against the wrong people; comedy, but mean-spirited and at the expense of the leads; major stars, but mostly for about a minute at a stretch; and a "happy" ending, which benefits a morally contemptible man who ought to be in jail. That The Player was a commercial success made the film's attack on the movie industry all the more ironic, but you get the impression that Altman must have seen the humor in that. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide