- During a rather critical scene halfway into Robert Altman's The Player, a closing door briefly reflects an image of the camera crew. Normally I'd chalk that sort of thing up to carelessness, but in this case I feel certain it was quite the opposite. After all, this is a film that begins with the snap of a director's clipboard followed by an eight-minute tracking shot in which two characters discuss the beginning of Touch of Evil. It's also a film that features more cameo appearances than any other film I've seen, with the possible exception of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. In short, The Player is a Hollywood movie about making Hollywood movies, a process for which it clearly doesn't have much respect.
- At the center of events is Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), a smarmy studio VP who has the admittedly onerous job of screening film pitches, like the memorable one Buck Henry makes for a completely unnecessary sequel to The Graduate. An average day for Griffin involves unstimulating meetings with his boss (Brion James), editing scripts with his lover (Cynthia Stevenson), schmoozing with studio bigwigs, and, above all, watching his back. You see, Griffin is the kind of guy who makes a lot of enemies. Stars like Malcolm McDowell and Burt Reynolds just plain dislike the guy while up-and-comer studio exec Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) wants Griffin's job. It's the writers, however, who really hate him because he never calls most of them back. Maybe it's one of them who's been sending Griffin death threats that sound like they could have come from one of the studio's own b-pictures.
- As Griffin grows increasingly paranoid, he begins to investigate possible suspects. In a scene that a hack producer might describe as Rear Window meets Annie Hall, Griffin falls in love with the charmingly eccentric and distinctly non-Icelandic artist June Gudmundsdottir (Greta Scacchi), who happens to live with the lead suspect, a acerbic writer named Kehane (Vincent D'Onofrio). Later that same night, Griffin's confrontation with Kehane (after a showing of The Bicycle Thief, naturally) goes horribly wrong, and Kehane ends up dead. Now, a Pasadena detective (Whoopi Goldberg) and the gruff studio security manager (Fred Ward) are starting to suspect Griffin, and the dragnet closes around him. And what on Earth is Lyle Lovett doing slinking around, anyway? Can Griffin's story possibly have a happy ending?
- Occupying a world where Hollywood posters adorn the walls like icons in an Orthodox Church, The Player proudly deploys one of the more potent mixes of satire and comedy ever to be applied to Hollywood. While it isn't a perfect film, it is a more pleasant pill to swallow than the previous year's thematically similar Barton Fink and is directed with all of Altman's usual skill. It is also, above all, supremely entertaining. In this respect, it takes after its own film-within-a-film, Habeas Corpus, in which the disturbing vision of the filmmakers (Dean Stockwell and Richard E. Grant ) is replaced by Bruce Willis gunning down a gas chamber window to rescue Julia Roberts as Peter Falk and Susan Sarandon watch on. It's no Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate, but then what is?
- I couldn't possibly mention all of the cameos or inside jokes. Let's just all go to Wikipedia to find that list. My favorite gag, however, is probably when Griffin gets a call from Joe Gillis.
