Bowfinger

Rating:
Summary: Unjustly overlooked, well-worth it
Review: No thanks to one of the worst promotional campaigns in history, "Bowfinger" died in theaters domestically, but may enjoy a well-deserved resurrection as a video cult item. That campaign, by the way, told us nothing about the movie and instead focused on Eddie Murphy's nerdish performance -- well, half of his performance, anyway -- which made no sense out of context. But the film itself is just shy of brilliance: Steve Martin plays a washed-up moviemaker of the Ed Wood school (he doesn't know he's bad, but he gives it his best anyway), who's guaranteed financing for the movie "Chubby Rain" if he can get one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Kit Ramsey (Murphy in bad-attitude mode). Since Ramsey wants nothing to do with Bowfinger, the filmmaker decides to have the movie shot on the sly, involving the actor without his knowledge or consent. This leads to some of the funniest scenes in any movie around -- which, alas, are not followed up as completely as they could be, but the fact that they got as far as they did is nothing short of wonderful. Martin and Murphy are both terrific; the rest of the cast is fun, too. This one deserved better.

Rating:
Summary: underrated
Review: What lifts this film up and makes it not just funny but great is that lurking behind the facade of a light-hearted slapstick about movie-making is a fairly devastating satire of Hollywood and its denizens.Ê So on the surface you've got Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin), B-movie producer/director, using his last $2000 to make the film, Chubby Rain, from a script by his earnest Muslim accountant.Ê Promised major studio backing if he can just secure the services of action-film superstar, Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), but realizing he's got no chance of doing so, Bowfinger decides to just surreptitiously include Kit in the movie.Ê This leads to some hilarious guerilla filmmaking, in which the other characters from Chubby Rain, to whom Bowfinger has not explained what's really going on, run up and interact with an increasingly bewildered and terrified Ramsey.Ê As we soon learn, Kit's frantic reaction to the dialogue and special effects of Bowfinger's invading-space-aliens film is exacerbated by some significant prior mental problems, which include an obsession with exposing himself to the Laker girls.

Also assisting in the production of the film are : a devious studio prop man, who steals everything from cars to cameras for Bowfinger; a seemingly fresh-scrubbed country girl, Daisy (Heather Graham); a serious, but bad, professional actress (Christine Baranski); Kit's twin, but excessively geeky, brother, Jiff (also played by Eddie Murphy);Ê a gaggle of illegal Mexicans, picked up at the border; and even Bowfinger's multi-talented dog.Ê All add to theÊ mayhem in their own ways.

But meanwhile, Kit turns out to be a member of a cult called Mind Head, led by Terrence Stamp in a funny turn, which bears an uncanny resemblance to Scientology.Ê Heather Graham's supposedly innocent character sleeps her way through the entire Bowfinger operation, whoring for more lines and a bigger role.Ê In the final scene of the movie she even turns up with a lesbian girlfriend, who just happens to be a major Hollywood player, summoning memories of Steve Martin's own relationship with a pre-Ellen Anne Heche.Ê And Graham's entire role appears to be an implicit critique of her own career which seems to be likewise based almost exclusively on her breasts.Ê Kit Ramsey's claims of racism in the industry are made fun of as he at one point adds up the "k's" in a movie script and divides by three to show his agent how often "KKK" appears.Ê Several other ostensibly good-natured bits that we can see on further examination have an edge to them include a scene where Bowfinger gets Jiff to run across a busy thruway by telling him that the cars are driven by stunt men, but which also shows how little he cares about the actor's safety, and a conversation where Jiff asks wonderingly why someone's willing to pay him just for looking like someone else, raises inevitable questions about an industry where mere physical appearance can mean millions.Ê In fact, the whole conceit of the story, that you could basically make a successful action flick without the big-salaried star knowing he'd been in the movie, and that everyone in the movie business is just using everyone else, is a pretty tough commentary on the current state of Hollywood.

This harsher undercurrent gives the movie a nasty, though subtle, edge that I really liked, but which some critics found off-putting.Ê Much of the potential tension is defused by Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy who give tremendous performances, Murphy in the seemingly tougher dual role, and Martin in the actually more difficult balancing act of making Bobby Bowfinger likable even as he cheats, lies to, and steals from everyone in sight.Ê The end result is a picture that works on two levels, one of mostly broad physical comedy, the other darker and more satirical.Ê Comedy is hard enough to get right, but to nail it above and below the surface is an exceedingly rare achievement; that it manages this unusual fate makes Bowfinger one of the best comedies of the '90s and vastly underrrated.

GRADE : A

Rating:
Summary: 1 star is too much
Review: I made the assumption that anything with Eddie Murphy is worth watching. Lets just say this movie proved me Wrong! Don't rent/buy/glimpse or wince at this trash of a film.

Rating:
Summary: Bowfinger Slips Through the Slimy Side of Tinseltown
Review: Everyone knows there's a sleazy side to Hollywood. Stories of casting couches and underhanded deals have circulated since the first movie studio's inception. Now every cliche comes to life in the new comedy Bowfinger. Steve Martin plays the title role as Bobby Bowfinger, a small-time director who cons, schmoozes, and slimes the industry in an attempt to create his first blockbuster movie.

Early previews of Bowfinger didn't do anything for me. It appeared to be another Eddie Murphy movie in which he plays multiple characters. I haven't been too impressed by Murphy's latest outings (for example, Holy Man), so I took a "wait and see" posture. Later I learned that it had been written by Martin (last seen in The Out-of-Towners), and directed by everyone's favorite Jedi Muppeter, Frank Oz. While Martin's comedy can be hit-or-miss, I began to have high hopes for this movie.

As often happens, the reality of the movie did not live up to my expectations. Although the premise was pretty clever, and the comedy was often entertaining, the movie was predictable and not up to Martin or Murphy's standards.

In the beginning, Bowfinger shows promise. Martin, as Bowfinger, has a gem of a movie script, written by his accountant, Afrim (Adam Alexi-Malle). Bowfinger is convinced that he can sell it to a big studio, but to do it he needs star power. The studio execs want Kit Ramsey (Murphy), but a big box-office draw like that won't even speak to the likes of Bowfinger. So Bowfinger decides to make the movie anyway, without Ramsey's knowledge. It's a good idea, in theory.

But when Kit goes into hiding, Bowfinger has lost his main star and must look for a substitute. It's no surprise when a look-alike is found (Murphy, again), or that the young nerd Jiff turns out to be the brother of the super star.

As far as the supporting cast goes, Christine Baranski (Bulworth) is wasted as an actress past her prime, and Heather Graham (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) is reduced to a stereotypical "anything to get ahead" power-hungry vixen. Jamie Kennedy (Scream 2), who plays Bowfinger's studio connection and cameraman, is almost ignored.

The worst crime is reducing Murphy's performance as Jiff. Early scenes with him acting as a stand-in for his brother (all of which appear in the previews) are great, but then Jiff becomes as unessential as the scenery. He never interacts with his brother, nor does he get any additional scenes. The change in direction is never explained.

All in all, everything in Bowfinger is like the title character. There's a lot of charisma and glitz, but nothing of substance. As a comedy, it's entertaining, but even the comedy wears thin when it breaks down into repetitive jokes and silly antics.

Rating:
Summary: Steve Martin still Has It!
Review: Steve Martin plays a small time movie producer, director (Bobby Bowfinger) and fibs his cast of B actors that he can put his sci fi project together. He convinces them that he has gotten action star (Kit Ramsey) Eddie Murphy to star in his small time film Chubby Rain. Satires of the movie industry are done so well via the pompus movie exexutive (Jerry Kenfro) Robert Downey Jr. Bowfinger exploits Ramsey's phobia of conspiracy by meeting him at chance locations with his film crew to film him hysterically. The concept is that Martins crew is told this is the only way Kit Ramsey will work. Murphy also plays Ramseys goofy nerdy brother who is hired as Ramseys double. Good work by Murphy and Steve Martin is in great form with his usual clever lines. The movie Chubby Rain is so horrible you can't beleive it's actually being filmed this way. Aside from slightly insulting your intellegence this movie is worth a watch. Martin does it again!

Rating:
Summary: Good actors + bad script = mediocre movie
Review: Steve Martin made a good attempt of making something funny around the theme of Hollywood wanna-be's. Unfortunately, this attempt fell short on many things, making the movie unenjoyable in the most part.

THE GOOD: If you expect comedy, just look at Eddie Murphy's characters and that will pull a couple of laughs out of your chest. Steve Martin was so well immersed into his Bowfinger character that you could forget it is a character. The story idea is interesting and there is good directing.

THE BAD: Eddie Murphy is so good that you expect to laugh as much with the rest of the movie and actually, you don't. You could even get the impression that Eddie just doesn't belong in a movie like this.

THE UGLY: The script is flawed, most secondary characters follow clichés, and the interaction between Steve and Eddie is disappointingly not as funny as anyone would expect. The ending sequence is spectacular for action movies but not funny at all.

MY ADVICE: Steve Martin fans, rent this movie. Eddie Murphy fans, watch it on cable. Lovers of good comedy, look elsewhere. Film students, get this movie because you'll enjoy the inside-jokes and probably learn something about incompetence, stupidity and ignorance.

Rating:
Summary: witty comedy
Review: Though not a comic jewel on a par with his 1991 "LA Story," Steve Martin's latest comedy, "Bowfinger," stands as an inventive, high-spirited, occasionally silly, but often hilarious take on the trials and tribulations encountered in the over-saturated world of low budget filmmaking.

Martin stars as Bowfinger, a down-on-his-luck wannabe head of a movie production company that brings new meaning to the term "shoestring." With an equally ragtag band of idealists as his crew, this quixotic visionary hits upon an absurd scheme to bring his godawful action film script to fruition; after it is handily rejected by Kit Ramsey, one of the hottest action stars in the business, Bowfinger concocts a scheme to film his screenplay AROUND the actor, plotting the man's every move, following him around town, and instructing his own amateur actors (who are oblivious to Ramsey's obliviousness) to jump out and act out their parts for the hidden cameras before an increasingly startled and distraught Ramsey. This clever setup generates a considerable wave of comic energy that propels the story forward even though, like most films that rely heavily on a one-joke premise, the film does suffer a bit from the diminishing returns of repetition. However, Martin's creative skills as a writer keep the idea fresh for most of the film's running time.

The film is blessed with an absolutely smashing comic performance by Eddie Murphy, who brings just the right note of both arrogance and anxiety to his portrait of a superstar whose internal insecurities and paranoia are hidden beneath a veneer of arrant egotism and aggressive despotism. Murphy is less successful with his other role, that of a shy nerdish Ramsey look alike (he actually turns out to be Ramsey's brother) whom the crew is compelled to use as a stand in for the real star when the latter is driven to seek a rest cure to soothe his frazzled nerves, caused, ironically, by Bowfinger's own antics. In all fairness to Murphy, however, in the character of Jiff, the actor has been given no solid center from which to build an effective comic performance. As a writer,Martin has failed to really develop Jiff's purpose in the proceedings and the character seems tacked on mostly to give Murphy a chance to indulge in some weak displays of slack jawed buffoonery.

Where the film does triumph is in the constant inventivenss of the situations, particularly the clever way in which Ramsey's paranoia dovetails so nicely with the absurdity swirling around him. Martin has also cast a company of first-rate performers as the sharply delineated secondary characters who make up Bowfinger's never-say-die team. Particularly wonderful are Heather Graham, whose character stumbles off a bus a naive young kid from Ohio, idealistically in search of quick stardom, who quickly learns to use her feminine wiles to enhance her starmaking opportunities, and Christine Baranski, whose over-the-hill and over-the-top method actress, determined come hell or high water to make an impression on the blithely unaware Ramsey, provides many of the genuine belly laughs in the film.

"Bowfinger" lacks the keen societal and psychological insights of Martin's greatest film, "LA Story," since it does tend to flail satirically at more obvious and less universal targets. Nevertheless, Martin creates a tone of utter devil-may-care silliness that sparkles throughout the often quasi-slapstick proceedings. Like any fine comedy, it envelops the audience in a world where just about anything can happen. And Martin is filmmaker enough to make us want to come inside and be a part of it.

Rating:
Summary: What went wrong?
Review: This seemed like such a great premise, which solid talent attached, that I thought it would be a sure thing. It could have been a sharp satire/farce, like an update of "The Producers" for Hollywood, skewering the star system and raising some interesting theories about the _real_ power in Hollywood.

Instead it never quite gels. Even though he's the title character, and is played by the writer, Bobby Bowfinger is ambiguous: is he an underdog dreamer, or a cynical exploiter? Also, if he's never made a movie before, how can he have all these contacts and tricks worked out?

Eddie Murphy goes through another phase of his Jungian Shadow work, in a dual role as Kit Ramsey, the paranoid megastar they shoot the movie around, and the star's schlep brother they use as a body double. Even though Murphy gets second billing, I think he has more screen time than Martin.

It's actually the secondary characters who get the worst of it. Given a little more screen time, there could have been some memorable character bits from the Mexican migrant film crew, the leader of the MindHead organization, the studio exec who gives a green light to a nobody, and Bowfinger's stable of eccentric actors.

I have to wonder if this movie fell fictim to the same point it was trying to make: The big-name stars get the money, the fame and the girls, but in many ways they put the least amount of work into the finished product. It takes a willingness to step down and let the other actors in the spotlight for a scene or two.

That said, there are some inspired bits about Bowfinger's crew stalking Ramsey and microbudget filmmaking (remember, every movie costs $2000 cash). The "Fake Purse Ninjas" mini-movie is worth the price of admission itself (on a Tuesday night, at least.)

Rating:
Summary: The perfect movie for a starving artist...
Review: Bowfinger is the perfect inspirational movie for any starving artist -- because it's all about lying, cheating, stealing, conning, blackmailing, and sleeping your way to the top.

Steve Martin stars as Bobby Bowfinger, a down-and-out filmmaker who's about to call it quits until he finds the perfect screenplay (it's a sci-fi film called Chubby Rain). Suddenly, the only thing standing between Bowfinger and a major Hollywood deal is signing Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) to star.

When Kit throws Bowfinger (and his script) out of his limo, Bowfinger decides that Kit's definitely going to be in the movie -- whether he knows it or not. Without being totally honest with his other cast and crewmembers about Kit's involvement, Bowfinger begins filming around an unknowing star, following him to restaurants, to his tailor, and to his home.

Thus Bowfinger begins creating his masterpiece with a cast of has-beens and hopefuls (including Heather Graham, who plays a wannabe actress who will do anything to be a star, and Eddie Murphy, who plays Kit's body double) and his crew of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, paranoid Kit is starting to think that there really are aliens after him...

Bowfinger has Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, and...Eddie Murphy. What more can any laugh-seeker ask for? Martin's knack for screenwriting -- and a perfectly-hilarious cast -- make this movie a frequently-played part of my collection.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious!
Review: Just ridiculously funny, written & starring comic genius Steve Martin,... & also starring another comedic genius in Eddie Murphy!.. Seriously, if U like a little slapstick mixed with a bit of an outlandish plot, mixed with Eddie Murphy at his physical funniest, then this will be right up your alley!