What Just Happened (15.)
Directed by Barry Levinson.
Starring Robert De Niro, Robin Wright Penn, Catherine Keener, Michael Wincott, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis. 107 mins.
Ah, the vanity parody. Two months ago we had the big, noisy, juvenile look-how-ugly-we-are Hollywood spoof Tropic Thunder; now we get the quiet, jaded, middle age look-how-ugly-we-are Hollywood comedy/ drama of What Just Happened?
The film is adapted from a memoir by producer Art Linson and this is one of those rare occasions when I’ve actually read the book a film comes from. Not that I can remember much about it – Art Linson may be a producer mostly associated with quality (Fight Club, Heat, Into The Wild, several of the better De Palmas) but his insider’s look at the workings of Hollywood was hampered by a hard boiled prose style that he couldn’t write up to.
Linson has written his own adaptation and has largely dumped the book's candid, true-as-far-as-legally-possible approach for a number of fictionalised strands that have him, or rather the Robert De Niro version of him, trying to navigate a path between cold hearted studio heads and the artistic tantrums of the talent. In one he is battling with a precious South London director (Wincott, playing Keith Richards for some strange reason) over the ending of his movie. In another he is trying to persuade Bruce Willis to shave his beard for a role. And all the time he is trying to get back with his ex-wife and mother of two of his children Wright Penn.
What’s De Niro like in it? Now there’s a redundant question. He’s exactly the same as he’s been in every film since Midnight Run. The only differential now is how animated he is and to be fair he seems quite engaged in this role. There are loads of scenes of him driving around LA which simply rehash his Heat persona, but as he goes through the old repertoire - the shrugs, the retracting chin, the one-inch nod - there’s enough energy to vaguely recall when he was special.
Competent but self absorbed, it’s exactly what you’d expect of a home movie made by people whose job is making movies. If they were prepared to really go for it there might be a film here but they prefer to coat everything in the veneer of quality.
The scenes between De Niro and Wright Penn are fine examples of acting around the point of the scene. They do enough to show you the joke but not enough to get you to laugh at it. They’re the glamorous hostess on a game show showing the failed contestant what they would’ve won.
De Niro reviews -
Everybody's Fine,
Silver Linings Playbook
Last Vegas
Midnight Run
Machete
Directed by Barry Levinson.
Starring Robert De Niro, Robin Wright Penn, Catherine Keener, Michael Wincott, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis. 107 mins.
Ah, the vanity parody. Two months ago we had the big, noisy, juvenile look-how-ugly-we-are Hollywood spoof Tropic Thunder; now we get the quiet, jaded, middle age look-how-ugly-we-are Hollywood comedy/ drama of What Just Happened?
The film is adapted from a memoir by producer Art Linson and this is one of those rare occasions when I’ve actually read the book a film comes from. Not that I can remember much about it – Art Linson may be a producer mostly associated with quality (Fight Club, Heat, Into The Wild, several of the better De Palmas) but his insider’s look at the workings of Hollywood was hampered by a hard boiled prose style that he couldn’t write up to.
Linson has written his own adaptation and has largely dumped the book's candid, true-as-far-as-legally-possible approach for a number of fictionalised strands that have him, or rather the Robert De Niro version of him, trying to navigate a path between cold hearted studio heads and the artistic tantrums of the talent. In one he is battling with a precious South London director (Wincott, playing Keith Richards for some strange reason) over the ending of his movie. In another he is trying to persuade Bruce Willis to shave his beard for a role. And all the time he is trying to get back with his ex-wife and mother of two of his children Wright Penn.
What’s De Niro like in it? Now there’s a redundant question. He’s exactly the same as he’s been in every film since Midnight Run. The only differential now is how animated he is and to be fair he seems quite engaged in this role. There are loads of scenes of him driving around LA which simply rehash his Heat persona, but as he goes through the old repertoire - the shrugs, the retracting chin, the one-inch nod - there’s enough energy to vaguely recall when he was special.
Competent but self absorbed, it’s exactly what you’d expect of a home movie made by people whose job is making movies. If they were prepared to really go for it there might be a film here but they prefer to coat everything in the veneer of quality.
The scenes between De Niro and Wright Penn are fine examples of acting around the point of the scene. They do enough to show you the joke but not enough to get you to laugh at it. They’re the glamorous hostess on a game show showing the failed contestant what they would’ve won.
De Niro reviews -
Everybody's Fine,
Silver Linings Playbook
Last Vegas
Midnight Run
Machete
