Offscreen Hollywood tales

Art Linson’s memoir What Just Happened: Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line forms the fodder for this satirical attempt at exposing the realities that unhinges the life of a producer.

Linson has himself worked on the screenplay which provides a very aimless and directionless picture of an A list producer, Ben (Robert De Niro), tackling a week in his life sandwiched between two ex-wives, troubled projects, a few money pushers, ever willing starlets, inefficient agents and some horribly eccentric and demanding stars.

The story is narrated from Ben’s point of view but without much insight into the workings of his own mind. The delivery is matter-of-fact, docu-drama style, gotta-do-what-I-do, uninteresting.

The veteran producer’s career is on hold because of a bad preview of his latest film Fiercely starring Sean Penn, directed by a crazy British director (Michael Wincott). He is also in a soup because the star, Bruce Willis, of his next venture has put on weight and wears an unbecomingly shaggy beard.

The film basically tries to highlight how unimportant and insignificant details magnify into livelihood-threatening insecurities.

The story has some intriguing insights but it’s not all about sleaze and gossipy innuendo that might interest the general public. There’s quite a bit of maneuvering, pacifying, back-stabbing and displays of money power that might prove more interesting to the Hollywood insiders than the outsiders.

The dialogues are true to life but not funny enough, the acting is note-worthy, and the cinematography and editing manage to raise the bar higher than the usual run-of-the-mill. Yet it all amounts to a just about bearable outing to the cinemas. Certainly much more was expected from Barry (Wag the Dog) Levinson! –JT