Starring: Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis and Catherine Keener.
Director: Barry Levinson.
Rated: M (violence, coarse language and sexual references).
Length: 104 mins.
WITH a terrific cast and a cracking script, distinguished director Barry Levinson (Diner, Avalon, Wag the Dog and his Oscar-winning Rain Man) has fashioned a thoroughly entertaining satirical putdown on the movie-making business told from the inside.
The writer is real-life movie producer Art Linson, who has created a fictional screenplay based on his own 2002 memoirs What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales From the Front Line.
His central character is Ben (Robert De Niro), a harassed Hollywood producer who in a frantic fortnight has to juggle:
- the impending failure of his latest big-budget movie that tested disastrously in previews;
- a temperamental star whose ego tantrums threaten to sink Ben’s next movie before shooting has even started; and
- his messy private life involving two ex-wives, for one of whom he still carries a torch.
De Niro gives an outstanding, subtle performance, capturing Ben’s frenetic, think-on-your-feet wheeler-dealing as he races frantically from one calamity to the next, hosing down spot fires, ceaselessly talking on his mobile phone and trying to placate all the various movie industry types trying to sink their fangs into one another.
Everyone in the Hollywood system has his or her own agenda and they all fight to protect their patch, which is why it is such a fertile ground for satire, and Linson’s line-up of characters (and the actors who play them) is a delight.
There’s Catherine Keener as a top studio executive who is ruthless and as tough as nails; Stanley Tucci as the writer simultaneously working with Ben and sleeping with his ex-wife; John Turturro as the agent who so detests the actors he represents that it gives him violent stomach cramps; Michael Wincott as the arty, drug-addled, loose cannon British director who, despite audience repulsion, insists on retaining a gratuitous scene in which, Quentin Tarantino-style, a dog gets shot bloodily in the head.
Robin Wright Penn is Kelly, Ben’s second wife whom he is trying to romance again (only to have every critical moment interrupted by the ringing of the mobile phone, which he is incapable of ignoring), and Kristen Stewart is the teenage daughter from his first marriage who is no longer the innocent he thinks she is.
Sean Penn plays himself as the unhappy star of Ben’s movie that looks like flopping and Bruce Willis cheerfully sends himself up as Bruce Willis the egotistical movie star whose refusal to shave off his beard will cause his film to be shut down and result in a flurry of lawsuits.
His scene in which he gets in a towering rage and begins smashing furniture is hilarious.
Also memorable is a funny scene where Ben and Kelly go to an expensive therapist for counselling on how to learn to live apart.
All in all, What Just Happened? is an amusing, credible insight into the madness of movie-making in Tinseltown.
It has funny lines, larger-than-life characters and mind-boggling situations. Film buffs should love it.
Jim Murphy is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting.
