Rating: 
Summary: Flash, Buzz, Snooze
Review: This film got a lot of buzz when it was released. Why? Well, mainly because it has cameos by everyone who was everyone in Hollywood at the time.The film itself is a snooze. This film says nothing original. Everything in it has been said before hundreds of times, and often better. Are there sleazy types in Hollywood? Perish the thought! Who' a-thunk it! Have there been murders over films and blackmail? Another revelation! Can Hollywood insiders really get away with saying something aginst their own world? THAT'S never happened before. Most of the film left me going, "...and?" Robbins is, to put it bluntly, a bland character. Is he doing something evil? Yep. But he isn't doing it any an interesting manner. He is so blase that I could care less whether he is found out or not. I don't have a feel for why I should like him, like his movies, or like the world he lives in. For that matter I don't have a reason to hate any of the above either. I just come away with a feeling of "so what?" Altman is a darling of the Hollywood set. He constantly creates films that filmmakers like. From what I have seen, most of them are a mess. "M*A*S*H" was alright. "Nashville" was better. Most of them, however, just wander around without really developing a plot or a character. This is a grand example of an Altman film in this regard. The plot of this film could have been summed up in a half-hour tv drama. But it is padded with the much-buzzed cameos that do nothing except allow Hollywood insiders to look at themselves and each other. Great if you want to play "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", but absolutely pointless for the structure of the film. Some stories need to be told. Some stories need to be retold. This story has been told many, many times in much more interesting ways and by much more talented people. In the end I wanted to rewrite this film so it was less a paeon to Hollywood glitz and more a /truly/ sordid tale of Hollywood nastiness. The film pretends to be insightful, vicious and nasty, but in the end is primarily a pandering to those already in power in Tinseltown.
Rating: 
Summary: Captivating
Review: An amusing look at movie making in Hollywood. Timothy Robbins really brightens up the screen as a Hollywood Producer who is receiving threatening correspondence from a dissappointed writer. Eventually Robbins in a fit of rage, accidentally murders a writer who may or may have been responsible for the threatening messages. None the less, he still finds that his troubles never end to the point that a snake appears in his mini-van. None the less, Robbins manages to dodge the rap and keep his finger in the hollywood movie making scene. The shots of many hollywood celebrities such as Woody Allen and Cher keep you glued to the screen. The twists and turns will definitely keep you interested. Worth a viewing.
Rating:
Summary: One of Altman's better films
Review: An often entertaining look at Hollywood, with Tim Robbins as the Hollywood insider being blackmailed by an irate writer, and Greta Scacchi as the decidedly offbeat love interest. Like many of Altman's films, this is not so much fun to watch as fun to contemplate afterwards. Also like many Altman's films, half the fun is to be had by getting an eyeful of drop in celebrities, and seeing how many you can spot.
A highlight of the picture is Richard E. Grant as an idealistic and slightly insane writer who swears he wont sell out and then does anyway. How very Hollywood.
Rating:
Summary: Altman's Hollywood Noir
Review: Of all of Altman's previous films this one most resembles The Long Goodbye. Like that earlier picture this one takes place in L.A. and makes fun of L.A. which is just such an easy and obvious target that no matter how many times you hit it...well... it just isn't that satisfying to hit.
The Long Goodbye was by most accounts an attractive to look at failure and this one is considered a success but I'm not so sure. The earlier picture is the more interesting one. Altman was great in the seventies because he had such a feel for the time and he liked the feeling of the times both his characters and he were playing in but in the eighties and nineties he doesn't seem to have the connection with either the time or his characters and so unlike his seventies characters his current characters do not feel as real or as fully imagined. The Long Goodbye is in retrospect perhaps less of a failure than some imagined. Either way it is a very attractive film, it looks and feels like the seventies but its themes transcend the era. The Player seems flat in comparison.
In the seventies Altman was a swinging visionary embracing cultural complexity. His cynicism was there even then but it was in tune with a wider cultural cynicism and it was, among other interesting things, funny. The Player is better than most of his projects since Nashville but it isn't as much fun as some of those failures. Tim Robbins I think is a great comedic actor and one aspect of this multi-dimesional film is its black comedy but it is also operating as a drama and Robbins isn't as convincing in the dramatic moments as he is in the comedic ones. Who you cast in this role greatly effects how you feel about the character. When acting comedic Robbins is self assured but when acting serious he seems goofy, hopelessly adolescent. Moral dilemna and inner conflict seem too much for such a character to carry and so that dimension of the film is only partially conveyed. In The Long Goodbye Nina Van Pallandt was not only likable despite her wickedness but very watchable, evil is most effective on film when it is made irresistably attractive. Nina was not a great actress but the part was fascinatingly drawn and her character was exceedingly complex, she just had to occupy it. The way Robbins plays The Player he never achieves that level of complexity.
The best scenes in the movie are the ones where Griffin Mill and his new blonde girlfriend(Greta Scacchi)spend a night at a spa and make their illicit pact which is eerily contemplated the next morning while they soak in mud. The scenes are powerful and they are the central defining moments for the characters but I think they could have been even more powerful with a less comedic actor. You feel the evil just below the beautiful surface in Nina Van Pallandt, in Robbins you feel nothing so menacing, nothing so deep.
Rating:
Summary: A strong if slightly over-ratted film
Review: Ok, lets get this out of the way. I like The Player. It's a good film. However, I don't feel it deserves the classic status it has achieved. The script starts out quite well. Griffin, a Hollywood executive is recieving threats from an angry writer. He ends up killing who he thinks is sending the threats but it turns out to be the wrong guy. Griffin is also fighting to save his job and is working on making a movie from a writer that insists it has no stars and a sad ending. This is where the film's problem is. There are numerous subplots but none are developed enough. The police investigation doesn't go anywhere. We don't learn much of anything about this writer who is threatening Griffin. We also see very little development in the upcoming script. When the film ends, it simply feels incomplete. On the up side, film buffs will appreciate alot of the in-jokes. The cast is relativly strong with a ton of celebrity cameos and some good chemistry. Tim Robbins totally steals the show however. It may be because he is just a very strong actor but it's also partly because his character is the only one which really feels developed. The Player would be a classic if it were an hour longer or focused more on one of the many plots. As it stands now, it's a well-made, entertaining, if somewhat shallow film.
Rating: 
Summary: All Polish
Review: This is about as technically flawless a film as I've ever seen. The subject is also as cynical as it gets. I've read a lot about this film being a biting critique of the film industry and that it was a miracle that such a film could come out of Hollywood. Of course, the great irony is that this film - which is supposed to be about the way the system produces nothing but formulas - is itself one huge formula. I found myself so many times figuring out exactly what Altman was doing, and then wanting to fast-forward so that I could "get on with it." While the idea seems clever, again there is sadly nothing new in this film. I suspect Altman thought this might be his "Citizen Kane" - a film that uses the story of one individual to criticize a vast corporate empire and at the same time shot with exquisite style and beauty. But I want to linger over every moment in "Citizen Kane" and I leave that film not only having been sensationally entertained but also with a deeper understanding of the human experience. When viewing "The Player," I felt myself just constantly wanting out. Being a film buff I stayed with it. I'm sure that the "nya-nya-nya-nya-nya" at the end is Altman thumbing his nose at the audience as much as at the film indutry. The difference between Altman and Welles is that Welles respected his audience's intelligence. This is an oppressive film.
Rating: 
Summary: The point of view of a student studying "The Player"
Review: As a film set as a text for us in English, year 12, "The Player" is full of themes such as the corruption of Hollywood, the struggle for power there, etc. As a student, I need to understand these themes and be able to write essays on them and the characters, using quotes where relevent/possible. I have watched this movie at least six times in order to prepare for my final exam in November. Even watching it six times, and delving deeply into the meaning of every word, every camera angle, and every filmic technique, "The Player" has lost none of its charm and appeal. That's why I give it five stars.
Rating:
Summary: Joe Gillis calling...
Review: "Players only love you when they're playing." --Stevie Nicks Griffin Mill, whose name has a kind of ersatz Hollywood feel to it (cf., D. W. Griffith/Cecil B. De Mille), is not a player with hearts so much as a player with dreams. He is a young and powerful film exec who hears thousands of movie pitches a year, but can only buy twelve. So he must do a lot of dissembling, not to mention outright lying, along with saying "We'll get back to you," etc. This is what he especially must say to writers. And sometimes they hold a grudge. In this case one of the rejected writers begins to stalk Griffin Mill and send him threatening postcards. And so the plot begins. Tim Robbins, in a creative tour de force, plays Griffin Mill with such a delightful, ironic charm that we cannot help but identify with him even as he violates several layers of human trust. The script by Michael Tolkin smoothly combines the best elements of a thriller with a kind of Terry Southern satirical intent that keeps us totally engrossed throughout. The direction by Robert Altman is full of inside Hollywood jokes and remembrances, including cameos by dozens of Hollywood stars, some of whom get to say nasty things about producers. The scenes are well-planned and then infused with witty asides. The tampon scene at police headquarters with Whoopi Goldberg is an hilarious case in point, while the sequence of scenes from Greta Scacchi's character's house to the manslaughter scene outside the Pasadena Rialto, is wonderfully conceived and nicely cut. Also memorable is the all black and white dress dinner scene in which Cher is the only person in red, a kind of mean or silly joke, depending on your perspective. During the same scene Mill gives a little speech in which he avers that "movies are art," a statement that amounts to sardonic irony since, as a greedy producer, he cares nothing at all about art, but only about box office success. His words also form a kind of dramatic irony when one realizes that this movie itself really is a work of art. As Altman observes in a trailing clip, the movie "becomes itself." The Machiavellian ending illustrates this with an almost miraculous dovetailing. This is the kind of script that turns most screen writers Kermit-green with envy. Incidentally, Joe Gillis, the Hollywood writer played by William Holden in Sunset Boulevard--personifying all unsuccessful screen writers--actually does call during the movie, but Mill doesn't recognize the name and has to be told he is being put on, further revealing the narrow confines of his character. In short, this is a wonderfully clever, diabolically cynical satire of Hollywood and the movie industry. This is one of those movies that, if you care anything at all about film, you must see. Period. It is especially delicious if you hate Hollywood. It is also one of the best movies ever made about Hollywood, to be ranked up there with A Star is Born (1937) (Janet Gaynor, Fredric March); Sunset Boulevard (1950); A Star is Born (1954) (Judy Garland, James Mason); and Postcards from the Edge (1990). I must add that in the annals of film, this has to go down as one of the best Hollywood movies not to win a single Academy Award, although it was nominated for three: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing. I suspect the Academy felt that the satire hit a little too close to home for comfort.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies ever made
Review: This film was one of the first DVDs I bought; so long ago that Amazon did not have customer reviews at the time. This is a great, great movie. I do not especially like Robert Altman films (I hated the movie he made after this one: Short Cuts), but I love this movie. The Player is about job stress. It is only parenthetically about the movie business. It is also about perception and how reality is perception. It is a very profound yet very very funny movie. The scene where Lyle Lovett and Whoopi Goldberg start laughing at Tim Robbins' protestations is one of the best ever filmed. I am not kidding. I rank this movie right up there with Godfather Parts I & II. A masterpiece. The DVD commentary is excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Just plain excellent
Review: Robert Altman doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to films, but a few stand out: M*A*S*H, The Long Goodbye, and this one. The casting of Tim Robbins is particularly inspired--all the deviousness behind such a cherubic face. Everything about this film is self-conscious: from the 8-minute tracking shot where characters talk about other tracking shots, to the screenwriter and his brother playing a screenwriter and his brother, even to who is nude and why--everything is a commentary on Hollywood and on The Player itself. Watch this movie not for the plot, which is a simple murder mystery thriller, but more for the in-jokes, the film references, and, most fun of all, for the Spot-the-Star game. Most of all, this movie is a load of fun for buffs.
| 
