The Player (1992) User Reviews (208)

The best anti-Hollywood film ever made by Hollywood

[Pedro_H · 8/10 · 23 July 2003]

Griffin Mill is a young hotshot producer who everyone bows and scrapes to because he has the powers to get a movie made. However he starts getting bugged by a dissatisfied writer which leads to all kinds of deadly intrigue.

Just when I thought Altman had gone totally off-the-boil he suddenly jumps back with his most perfectly realised film. While hardly unapplauded on its release (and in short retrospect) this is a movie that will be regarded by future generations as a classic. It is so smart, sassy, funny and has a beginning, a middle and an end. The kind of tragicomedy that gets the best of both worlds.

Robbins is perfect as the lead. He doesn't do much or emote much. As Robert De Niro once said "most people don't show their emotions, they hide them." Occasionally we get behind the shield of human indifference, but only occasionally. We don't like him much - nor should we - but he is not so bad that we can't bare him. Indeed he is merely someone whose selfish world gets out of control. Whoopie Goldberg makes the most of her unlikely casting too.

The appearance of stars in guest parts adds a bit of icing, but that is all. I loved Altman's directions to the stars who had to play walk-ons (who else could have got that?) "remember, you are responsible for who you are on screen. You are playing yourselves!"

The sexy Scacchi plays the love interest with great skill. While just a muse she is a far better actress than most and this shows in her short screen time. Shame she hasn't more involvement in the main plot.

Like breaking a car down in to its competent parts, taking The Player apart only leaves an ugly mess of oil and metal. Together it drives a tight little film that has insight, drama and comedy. I would hesitate to call this a masterpiece, but it is a mini-masterpiece that however farfetched never reaches the point of being totally unbelievable.

The pay off at the end is one of the best belly-laughs any film buff could ever get. I doubt I will see a better film about modern day Hollywood in my lifetime. Like Pulp Fiction, a film that is as enjoyable the second time of viewing as the first.

Slowburning, yet suspensful and funny portrait of all the insiders dirt about Hollywood.

[imseeg · 8/10 · 23 July 2018]

"The Player" is bigger than the sum total of it's ingredients, because this Robert Altman classic has got so many links pointing to movie history that it is dizzying. It is all about Hollywood and the ins and outs of the movie industry. But let me first focus on the story for now, for those who just wanna see a suspenseful who dunnit story.

"The Player" is a slowburning, yet suspenseful detective story, with funny breathers scattered throughout. Whoopi Goldberg swinging her tampon is one of those hilarious scenes that lights up the seriousness of this detective story about the death threats. It's a who dunnit, with some jokes and with lots of parodies on the inside world of Hollywood. Lots and I really mean lots and lots of actors play themselves in this movie. Everybody wanted to be part of this movie that could be described as "a chainsaw cutting down Hollywood's image"

What's the story about? Tim Robbins plays a hollywood producer elbowing his way to the top. This selfish movie producer will do anything to gain more succes in the superficial world of Hollywood and he is hated by many writers and actors, who were ridiculed or rejected by him. This obnoxious movie producer starts getting death threats mailed to him by postcards. The death threats get more serious every week and Tim Robbins gets desperate to find out which psychotic writer is sending these threats.

"The Player" at first depicts the search for this mysterious person who is sending these evil death threats, but later on the movie takes a dramatic turn which I wont reveal here to avoid spoilers. As I said before, it is a slowburning story, yet slowly climaxing into a very suspenseful ending. Over 2 hours long. But I enjoyed every minute of it and I must have seen it over 10 times by now.

Acting is not particularly great, yet rather funny, in a more amusing satirical way. It is especially funny to see all those well known actors (in the nineties) walk by in this movie playing themselves. That is just eye candy. Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis among others in cameo roles, hilarous stuff!

This direction by Robert Altman is to be highly complimented for many things. Movie geeks would have a field day analyzing this satire on Hollywood. Read all the other reviews, people just have a field day here on imdb analyzing this Hollywood satire. Director Robert Altman made a very suspenseful yet funny detective story that has stood the test of time. More than 20 years later this movie is still a thrill and joy to watch...

Postcards from hell

[damian-fuller · 8/10 · 2 April 2018]

At times it feels like a period piece or is it that we're so used to the horror. A world populated by the shallowest, opportunistic bunch of ignoramuses the world has ever know. How can art come out of that? I think that when it does it's just an accident of Casablanca proportions. Robert Altman who knows a thing or two about it tells us the horror story with the most everyday approach. Tim Robbins is perfect as that empty designer clothed excecutive with a tinge of self awareness. I had to take a shower after the film was over and remove myself from that world.

Worth seeing a second and a third time....

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 12 September 2016]

I am surprised that the IMDb trivia section is so short for this film. After all, it's jammed full of references to earlier films and is full of actor cameos. Because of this, it's clearly a film that bears re- watching in order to catch the many small details many would often miss. Also, because this film is ultra-famous, already has many reviews and is beloved by many, I'll keep my review relatively short. Suffice to say that it's a film lovers and insiders dream movie.

The film begins with an insanely difficult scene that sets the stage for the film. It's all in one long take where the camera moves all over a wide area on a film studio lot. But instead of being intimate, it feels almost like the viewer is hiding and peering at the many different things occurring simultaneously. This is brilliant, as the film does have a real voyeuristic quality...with many shots that are not traditionally framed but are as if you are watching in the near distance.

What follows is a very dark anti-fairy tale set in modern Hollywood. Instead of the usual story of a person working hard and doing good and ultimately being rewarded, this is pretty much the opposite. With a total jerk-face (Tim Robbins) screwing people over and even killing someone...and the consequences of this. It's obviously meant as an attack on many Hollywood types--the users, the superficial and the vaguely talented. Overall, a superb film that works very well due to wonderful direction and a black hole-dark script filled with cynicism.

Joe Gillis calling...

[DennisLittrell · 10/10 · 21 August 2001]

"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.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

A movie for movie fans

[ametaphysicalshark · 17 September 2007]

During Robert Altman's "The Player" the criteria for a good Hollywood movie are established by the lead character: "Suspense, laughter, violence, hope, heart, nudity, sex, and happy endings, mainly happy endings". If you look close enough you'll find all of them in the film, as well as some in the film within this one. "The Player" is a scathing, smart, and funny attack on the Hollywood studio system and doubtless one that will be enjoyed more by those who have prior knowledge of the studio system, or are simply just movie fans. This film is packed with cameos, specific references to film history and only a truly dedicated movie fan could catch all of them.

The film opens with an eight minute long continuous shot which follows the lives and discussions of several executives and other personnel at a movie studio. This shot establishes several important characters as well as the cynical tone of the film (we hear a pitch for "The Graduate 2" set 25 years after the original among other ridiculous discussions). It also pays tribute to Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, even mentioning Welles' "Touch of Evil" and its similar opening shot as well as Hitchcock's "Rope". Soon we meet Griffin Mill, a studio executive whose job is basically to hear pitches and either approve them or turn them down. His job isn't to pick the good movies, it's to pick the moneymakers (later in the film a character talks about "The Bicycle Thief", a product of Italian Neo-Realism and says: "that's an art film, it doesn't qualify. We're talking about movie movies"). One of the writers Mill turned down starts to send him threatening postcards and he assumes this person is David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio), so he tracks him down and semi-accidentally kills him, leading to a rather typical police investigation into the matter. Mill begins a romance with Kahane's widow, further adding to the convoluted Hollywood thriller plot.

In a wonderfully funny subplot Mill approves a pitch for a bleak, dark drama in which an innocent woman is sent to the gas chamber. The pitch is for the film not to include a happy ending and also 'no stars, only talent'. The subplot is developed alongside the main plot and used mainly for pure comic relief (nothing in "The Player" is serious drama, but the main plot is played straight and is mainly satiric in its ridiculousness, mostly avoiding big laughs in favor of more subtle humor). Over the course of the film the criteria for a good Hollywood film are all met. There's suspense (suspense in the Hollywood sense), laughter, violence, hope and heart (we manage to feel supportive of Griffin Mill even though he's mostly heartless and cruel), some nudity thrown in for good measure, and even an utterly idiotic sex scene which of course has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot. The brilliant double-ending is played for laughs and remains one of the best I've ever seen.

The screenplay by Michael Tolkin (who also wrote the book) is pitch-perfect in its balance, it manages to be satiric without descending to farce and scathing while remaining good-natured. The acting is excellent all around, particularly from Tim Robbins, who is perfectly capable of a strong performance (see Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River"), but plays his role here like any bland lead in a Hollywood thriller. He doesn't even bother emoting for the majority of the film, which only makes the satire stronger.

With "The Player" Robert Altman returns to form and makes a worthy addition to his impressive filmography (which includes films like "Nashville", "Gosford Park" and "MASH"). The film is funny both in a traditional manner and also in a dark, satirical manner. By including all of the elements of typical Hollywood in his film Altman has crafted a crowd-pleaser as well as a tribute to film and film fans everywhere. One of precious few films that are truly perfect.

5/5

A meta and witty inside-joke, sardonically jabbing at the ribs of tinsel-town.

[Pjtaylor-96-138044 · 7/10 · 14 March 2018]

'The Player (1992)' is a meta and witty inside-joke, jabbing at the ribs of tinsel-town in a cynical yet comedic way, and it manages to sardonically satirise the entire studio system, with a only little bit of self-aggrandising and perhaps an equal measure of self-deprecating. The picture isn't particularly funny, though it can cause some chuckles, but is instead the kind of sly smile inducing mockery that takes its time to dawn on you and isn't immediately obvious. It's this undercurrent that carries the flick much more than the main plot itself, so much so that the actual narrative becomes a part of the running gag as opposed to a vehicle for the individual jokes to spawn from. It's a unique, and somewhat acquired taste of a, film that's usually enjoyable and equally intelligent. 7/10

Insidiously clever dark comedy

[mstomaso · 9/10 · 13 November 2005]

Robert Altman gets under my skin. His films are worthy of great respect, yet they are frequently as irritating as they are brilliant. The Player is, as much as Short Cuts, a quintessential Altman film. It is also one of the best roles Tim Robbins has ever enjoyed.

This film is about Hollywood's dark underbelly. The Player eviscerates its subject by twisting justice, political gamesmanship and artistic integrity into new configurations. For non-film-buffs or non-professionals some of the humor may seem too subtle to notice. To film buffs and insiders, the humor is totally over the top.

Robbins plays a young studio exec who is playing the game to win and seems, at least part of the time, to have a conscience. Everything is going along fine for him until he starts receiving threatening calls and letters from a writer whose screenplays he has rejected, and an arch-rival is promoted to a position just above his own. Paranoia and real danger seem in the periphery of every scene in his life, as the make-believe of his industry and the reality of his life begin to blend freely.

Robbins makes a character who could easily have been totally unlikeable somehow sympathetic. Despite his amazing performance, liking the character makes you feel as if you should go stand in a shower and exfoliate for an hour or so. He is supported by excellent supporting work all around. Especially good are the two major women's roles - played by Greta Scachi and Bonnie Sherrow, and veteran camp character Dean Stockwell.

The photography is liberally and amusingly lifted from several classic thrillers, mysteries and dramas, and comes off fresh and original - not at all like a DePalmaesque bit of visual plagiarism. And the pace is brisk.

The Player is probably my favorite Altman film, and it is easily my favorite Tim Robbins film. It's entertaining, intelligent and, well, it has a bad attitude. See it some night when you're angry and you need a good dark laugh.

Good-natured Hollywood satire

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 18 July 2015]

Robert Altman's THE PLAYER is a comic murder mystery set within the confines of Hollywood itself. The main character, played with skill by Tim Robbins, is a slimy studio executive who spends his days either greenlighting or turning down various scripts proposed to him by writers. When he starts to receive threatening postcards from somebody he's turned down, he takes matters into his own hands...with drastic consequences.

The main emphasis of THE PLAYER is on its self-referencing, some four years before SCREAM came out and became the popular post-modern film satire. THE PLAYER's achievements are more subtle, and the humour is more character focused, but anyone with any interest in Hollywood and its history whatsoever will be in their element here. There's a realistic, chaotic feel to the storyline, where characters go off the rails but are nonetheless constrained by a tightly-ruled empire.

It's hard to mention THE PLAYER without mentioning the endless star cameos. They're plentiful and constant, and you could watch the film on mute just for the faces: Angelica Huston, Cher, Peter Falk, Susan Sarandon, the list is endless. Somebody asked me the other day which film has the most cameos in it and I think this would have to be the one. The ending, with a special pair of celebrity cameos, is absolutely hilarious and a real high point of the movie for me.

The Truth About The Hollywood Dream Machine

[Doc-134 · 10/10 · 28 April 1999]

Come next year, when I am trying to devise a list of the best films of the 90's, Robert Altman's "The Player" will be near the top of my list. This film skillfully creates a central plot around Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) (who hears about 125 movie pitches per day), a studio executive who is being threatened by a writer whose script or idea he likely brushed off. But what is even more brilliant about "The Player" is everything going on peripherally to the main plot; all the references to studio techniques of film-making, foreign film movements, homages and Old Hollywood vs. New Hollywood. The film is multi-layered, yet everything that we view falls neatly into the formula which Hollywood film-making survives by. What we see in the duration of "The Player" would potentially make a perfect pitch for a movie. This may sound confusing, but watch the entire film, and you will immediately know what I mean.

The film begins with a stunning homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope", an approximately eight minute long take where the camera moves freely around a studio encountering many people in the midst of their everyday routines. For example, we come across a couple discussing how Hollywood film is now much like MTV "cut, cut, cut". One of the characters even uses the example of "Rope" to illustrate his point. "Rope" is approximately a ninety minute film that appears to have been shot all in one take. Of course, it wasn't done in one take, as reels of film at that time were only ten minutes long. If one watches the film very closely, it can be determined where the cuts are made.

In the duration of the same take, we encounter Griffin Mill conducting business in his office. People walk into his office pitching movie ideas. It is here that we begin to learn about populist Hollywood film-making. Ideas, not stories or scripts are pitched to executives "in 25 words or less". Almost always, the ideas thrown out are based on previous films (e.g. "someone always gets killed at the end of a political thriller") and even combinations of previous films (e.g. "It's Pretty Woman meets Out of Africa"). When we see the usual films that are released into theaters each week, it is not difficult to believe that this is the way in which they are conceived. The usual Hollywood formula entails sex, violence, familiarity and most important of all "happy endings, a movie always has to have a happy ending".

"The Player" is filled with loads of Hollywood stars, most of them playing themselves. Jeff Goldblum, Malcolm McDowell, John Cusack, Angelica Huston, and Burt Reynolds to name a few. Many of them are encountered at restaurants during lunch and at night time Hollywood gatherings, where the topic of conversation is always movies. Near the beginning of the film, Griffin suggests that he and his lunch guests talk about something else. "We're all educated adults". Of course no one says anything. Their lives are so indoctrinated by Hollywood, they do not know what else to talk about.

Right from the beginning Griffin receives numerous postcards threatening his life. He begins to suspect a certain writer and goes to his house one night to confront him. The man turns out not to be home, but there is an incredible scene where Griffin talks with the man's girlfriend on the phone while voyeuristically watching her through the window. This is an extraordinary symbolization of the voyeuristic essence that goes along with watching a film, or the notion of scopophilia to be precise. The idea behind the concept of scopophilia is that the cinema constructs the spectator as a subject; the beholder of the gaze, who has an intense desire to look. The cinema places viewers in a voyeuristic position in that the viewer watches the film unseen in a dark room. While Griffin is watching the girl as he speaks with her, it is night time and he remains unseen to her. This scenario metaphorically represents the theater and the film.

In the duration of Griffin's conversation on the phone, he finds out that the man he is looking for is watching "The Bicycle Thief" in an art-house theater in Pasadena. This film in itself represents the first contrast to Hollywood that we see in "The Player". Vittorio DeSica's "The Bicycle Thief" was part of a movement that lasted from 1942 to 1952 called ‘Italian Neo-Realism", whose other main exponents were Rossellini and Visconti. Rossellini called neo-realism both a moral and an aesthetic cinema. Neo-realism, to a great extent owes much of its existence to film-makers' displeasure at the restrictions placed on freedom of expression. This film movement is quite different from the modern Hollywood formula of film-making. When Griffin first meets the man he suspects is sending the postcards, he suggests that perhaps they could do a remake of "The Bicycle Thief". The man responds with "yeah sure, you'd probably want to give it a happy ending".

Also interesting in "The Player" is one of the studio executives suggestions to newspapers as a source for script ideas. This serves to contrast Old Hollywood versus New Hollywood. In the older days of studio film, Warner Brothers (one of the studio's of middle-class America) would produce films with ideas seemingly drawn from real life or from the headlines of major newspapers. This gives us the sense that often Hollywood is stuck for original ideas, so ideas from the past re-circulate themselves.

I have touched on only a few of the many interesting references that run peripherally to the main plot of "The Player". The great thing is that even if you do not catch all the film references that I have been discussing, it is still enjoyable. When I first saw the film, I was really young and did not know much about movies, but yet I enjoyed it thoroughly. Now, it is one of my favorites. I definitely recommend it to anyone who has a keen interest in film.

**** out of ****

Weak story ruins it

[charchuk · 6/10 · 4 April 2007]

When it's a smart and funny look at the dark side of Hollywood, it's at its best. The numerous celebrity cameos, the sharp humour, and the in-jokes to other movies are all great and make it worthwhile. Unfortunately, that's not the whole film. The thriller aspect is completely ludicrous and only drags the movie down; add into that a rather boring romance, and you've got a film with a serious personality disorder. It never decides what it wants to be, so it decides to be everything, and it just doesn't work. The main cast is solid, and there is some exceptional dialogue, but the overall story is very, very weak. Altman's trademark style is on display in the first scene, and then appears scattered throughout, but large portions of the film are rather blandly directed. In fact, if the entire movie was like the first scene, I would have liked it a whole lot more.

Excellent Hollywood satire that succeeds in every way.

[Spider-52 · 9/10 · 23 August 1999]

For anyone who loves movies, "The Player" is a treat.

To start, the screenplay is first-rate. The plot that holds the entire film together is superbly crafted; very few films leave you guessing right to the end as this one does. The finer details also shine through, such as the sales pitch scenes, which are inarguably classic (i.e. "The Graduate II").

I loved the attention to detail in "The Player". One can find a new detail every time one watches the film. For example, the opening sequence is a very long, continuous shot during which characters are discussing Hitchcock's "Rope", which appears to be a movie filmed all in one continuous shot. The sheer number of cameos in "The Player" makes it difficult to list all of them, so I won't even try.

"The Player" is one film that sets out to skewer Hollywood and actually succeeds. One only has to view the Bruce Willis/Julia Roberts sequence in order to understand this. My hat goes off to Robert Altman for making another excellent film.

over rated by other viewers

[ds-12 · 6/10 · 31 January 2001]

If you work in the film industry then maybe the movie is amazing but for other viewers like me, I think the movie was ordinary.

Lot of loose ends which did not make sense to me. How does Tim Robbins figure out (wrongly) the writer of those threatening postcards? Why does he get his ex girlfriend fired? Why did he change his original plan about the Bruce Willis/Julia Roberts movie where he was trying to get the other executive fired but in the end got his own ex girlfriend fired?

The good parts were the satire of Hollywood business and the shallowness. I give a 6/10.

Feels like a tongue-in-cheek Noir B movie sprinkled with A players

[vostf · 5/10 · 14 March 2012]

On the whole The Player is pretty enjoyable if you can appreciate the avalanche of cameos and insider's jokes. Now, with all the Hollywood self-references this doesn't feel too real and actually the stars-as-themselves look cheap with boring lives from that perspective.

With the counter-productive glamour context constantly out to chew up all the main plot, the movie itself feels like a Noir movie that never really knew how he should behave with so many big people around. The chemistry between the two main characters is cranky at best - and I won't even try to compare to classic poisonous noir couples. Then the plot doesn't really move forward, and when you get used to it and understand it's more about a big inside joke than about a plot, you find it really drags its feet.

Could have been an acceptable joke at 90 minutes max. At over 2 hours it's an over-stretched joke, a movie guilty with self-indulgence and over confidence.

Classic referred to by journalists, reviewers...has entered the lexicon

[alicecbr · 10/10 · 13 July 2005]

Robert Altman performed a great service to us movie fans with this movie. We are able to see the brutish way the studios treat their writers....and don't find it difficult to believe that some writer would want to murder the producer.

The many homages paid to other movies is great: the execution scene from "I want to Live" is replayed, and Bruce Willis jumping in the midst of the cyanide fumes to rescue the damsel in distress makes the contrast with the Graham movie even more poignant (especially if you believe she was innocent). Watching the various emotions play across Tim Robbins face makes you understand what a great actor he is.

The convoluted plot makes the movie more interesting, even as we see a Palm Springs lovers' rendezvous where some lovers swim in the nude in front of others dancing. You don't know what's true and what's not, even when the producer's ex-girlfriend is left sobbing on the steps. It seems too melodramatic for reality, but melodrama is what these people are all about!!!!! Altman's favorite trick of having everybody talk over each other is, while realistic, disconcerting. I still wish I could have heard what Burt Reynolds was saying, nothing complimentary, when Robbins walked up to him at the restaurant. Watching the writers become sycophants, prostituting their 'art' just to get the movie made rang QUITE true. He backs down on both 'no stars' and 'no Hollywood ending'. The only one with morals involved in the movie business gets fired, of course.

One of the movies you need to have on your shelf. Now I've got to go back and watch for Robbins' many references to different brands of water, pointed out by the NYTimes just today.

Robert Altman's most widely known film

[kentrowe · 8/10 · 23 June 2018]

One of Robert Altman's finest films featuring one of the best tracking shots ever put on film- The shot which begins the movie was a homage to Orson Welles but became legendary in its own right. Tim Robbins plays a Hollywood Executive who gets embroiled in a seedy murder case involving a scriptwriters murder. Featuring the ethereally gorgeous Greta Scacchi and some cool cameos this is one film you must watch if you like movies made about the seedy town they call Hollywood.

The Trick is the Confusion

[tedg · 19 July 2002]

Spoilers herein.

All (fiction) films are about other films. Every actor we see on the screen has another life. Every film somewhere contains a story about itself -- often it takes a film archeologist, but sometimes it is registered in a readable, even unavoidable way.

All of the masters and a good many ordinaries play with this notion in one way or another. Some even take it on as a literal challenge: `Sunset Blvd.,' `Wayne's World,' `French Lieutenant's Woman,' `Apocalypse Now,' `Draughtsman's Contract,' `Bowfinger,' `8 1/2' quite a few. `The Player' has the advantage of excess which makes it seem unique. It is not, but because the method of making it is as much a part of the parody it is uniquely clever.

Part of the parody is the one and only thing most people see. Dozens of actors play themselves amidst many other actors who play characters. Some of those characters are film types, some not. This shifting of worlds is a simple trick, but it works. Much more subtle (except at the beginning) is how Atlman uses the camera to sometimes be in the film's film world, then in his film world (the character's real world), then in our real world (the same as most of the actors). It starts with that first Wellesian shot which includes a comment on pretentiousness of such shots.

The writer is watched by both use, but also by a writer who eventually gets his film produced. And of course at the end we discover that it is the film we have been watching. The player is the creator of the player at play. I love this stuff, but get offended when it is juvenile hands as is the case in say `8MM,' or even `Cut.' But Altman is different, he is smart and not at all afraid to take chances.

This film marked a change in Tim Robbins. He would go on to produce his own version, `Cradle will Rock,' with many of the same tricks, including the narrative shift and the long tracking shot.

Ted's rating -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.

** 1/2 out of ****

[kyle_c · 6/10 · 13 October 2002]

What has the potential to be a brilliant satire of Hollywood ends up falling into heavy handedness to the point that it almost becomes silly. The film is overwhelmed with cameo after cameo, most of them unnecessary. The actually story, about a studio executive (in an excellent performance by Robbins), who gets death threats from a crazed screenwriter, is very interesting, but eventually falls apart as the many cameos begin to take center stage. By the end, the story begins to lag, and when it is all resolved it feels like the movie never really cared about the story in the first place. I admire Altman's directing talent - although his arrogance shows through in most of his movies - and it is especially obvious in the 9 minute tracking shot in the beginning of the movie, probably the best of its kind ever filmed.

Just re-visited this & still love it

[pwalker-13 · 10/10 · 5 May 2006]

I just went back and watched this again after many years and still find it one of the best movies ever made about movies. This "movie within a movie" has it all. Suspense, drama, comedy, great and numerous cameos, and some "inside Hollywood" jokes. One highlight is at the start where the actors are describing the best long opening tracking shots of all time while Robert Altman skillfully is showing you one at the same time! The Burt Reynolds cameo is very funny, sounds unscripted, and is one of many brilliant uses of this device. Favorite line: "waiter, this is a wine glass. I'd like my water in a water glass". The line comes from Tim Robbins, who is excellent as studio executive Griffin Mill.

Iconic backstage Hollywood film

[HotToastyRag · 6/10 · 27 June 2019]

The first scene of The Player is iconic. It's shown in film schools all over the country about how to ad-lib a master shot all in one take, and director Robert Altman is the master that that type of scene. After the first scene, the movie tends to go downhill, but if you're super impressed by it, or if you love movies about Hollywood, you might like it.

Tim Robbins stars as an executive who hears pitches from screenwriters all day long about the next big hit. The first scene is hilarious, with cameos from countless screenwriters claiming "a cross between" two ridiculously unrelated movies as a way to market their pitches. Tim rejects dozens of pitches a day, and when he starts receiving threatening notes, he and police officer Whoopi Goldberg try to find out which disgruntled writer they're coming from. Add in a romance with Greta Scacchi, and the usual business of the Hollywood grind, and he's got a pretty busy schedule. Stuffed with cameos from over 65 movie stars-no, I won't list them, just look up the full list-as well as a supporting cast comprised of Peter Gallagher, Vincent D'Onofrio, Richard E. Grant, Dean Stockwell, Fred Ward, Lyle Lovett, Cynthia Stevenson, Brion James, and Sydney Pollack, you'll make yourself dizzy with the amount of familiar faces crammed into two hours of screen time. Just as Sunset Boulevard was fun to see a bunch of Hollywood greats playing themselves for a few seconds, The Player is equally fun to see so many stars gathered together.

the reality of the making of the un-reality of Hollywood

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 2 April 2006]

Once The Player's end credits rolled, I was shaken, but in the kind of way that you are when you hear a really sly, long joke by someone who knows what they're telling is not hysterical but still has a wicked knack that will stay with you or gnaw at your side. Robert Altman's the Player, one of his very best films (maybe his best) made since the 1970's, is as much about the detached, perfunctory nature of these characters as it is a story of a murdering writing executive. It's not a satire in the sense of Dr. Strangelove; there's nothing that's over the top for the audience. But it does get in some notes, practically without any pretense of going about it otherwise, about the sterility of modern Hollywood. As a film buff, while watching this movie I'm not even bowled over by the numerous cameo appearances by Hollywood's main stars and wonderful character actors. That's because Altman, while being un-obtrusive of what the actors are doing on screen, has his focus set very carefully, and it's in this precise kind of mode that it works best.

It's not to say Altman's style doesn't have its own voice, and some of the shots in the film- self conscious no doubt- bring out the anti-Hollywood while Hollywood ideas. And working in the framework, not the dependence, of the story lets some interesting things of reality go on. When you see this 8-minute long take at the start of the film, it's getting the music of the film going right away, of the 'money-talks, BS-continues' attitude of a Hollywood studio, not just of the main character Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins). It may be 'just a movie', but it's also one with this constant feel of life going on, as Altman, through Tokin's screenplay, is a fly on the wall as it were. We see Mill, a writing executive, go through a rough patch with a certain writer (Vincent D'Onofrio) who hasn't heard back from him in a while. When a harsh accident occurs, Mill has to keep moving, not just with his job or his details of the night the two had, but with the writer's girlfriend (Greta Scacchi) who start an affair.

Altman once said, quite famously, once casting is complete 80% of his work is done. The Player is one of those major examples in Altman's career, and despite the fact that most, if not all, of the supporting actors (who may or may not also be in their cameo roles) are sublime in their roles (Goldberg, Scacchi, Lyle Lovett, and especially Cynthia Stevnenson), it's a key Robbins turn. His career has often had roles where he can lay in a naturalness that other actors might not have gone for. He also fits the role of Griffin Mill much as he did for Andy Dufresne and Dave in Mystic River. Here he has a perfect quality in this character to, as Ebert pointed out, not be un-likable even as he is not a good person. I loved the little facial gestures, the seemingly controlled stares, and the small moments where his upper class facade starts to wear down beneath the bloodless business of making movie deals. His could be for some the only reason to see the film, and rightfully so, as I really don't think Altman would've been able to pull it off with another.

It does almost add to what could be frustration for some by the end of the film to see what happens to him, but it actually is after thinking about it more even more satisfying an ending. A question the film ponders for this character is- if he can survive the reality when all he wants is a happy ending in the stories he hears? And through this simplicity some compositions and scenes are quite remarkable; that one single shot of a certain close-up of a sex scene not only plays brilliantly off of a script description earlier, but is one of the best scene-shots I've seen in recent movies. Very well done, if not for everyone.

Altman at His Lightest Is Still Brighter Than Standard Hollywood

[ilpohirvonen · 6/10 · 31 December 2015]

Robert Altman is one of the rare American directors who have succeeded in keeping loyal to their own style and vision while also being able to carry on for quite a long time. Altman began directing in television in the 1950's, had his cinematic breakthroughs in the 1970's, and kept working hard until his death in 2006. He always kept a healthy distance to Hollywood, but it seems that he -- like so many others -- had a twofold relationship with the dream factory. The influence of classical Hollywood, which the director adored, is apparent in Altman's cinema, but at the same time he expresses great frustration and even loathe towards Hollywood. Both of these attitudes emerge powerfully in his witty, insightful, and lightweight satire of Hollywood, "The Player" (1992) which is filled with references to film history.

The story focuses on a Hollywood studio executive, Griffin Mill (played by Tim Robbins) who starts to investigate an abandoned screenwriter sending death threats his way. After murdering the writer more or less unintentionally, Mill falls in love with the writer's girlfriend, but his new life is once again threatened by the police investigating the murder case. In the meantime, Mill's studio is producing a new film whose director wants something else than standard Hollywood entertainment, but the studio has different plans. The line between reality and unreality, fiction and non-fiction begins to blur as Mill's life starts bearing a resemblance to all those film-noir movies whose posters hang on the studio's walls.

This is the core of the story to which Altman anchors all the multiple story elements that he enjoys developing. Inter-textual references, satirical jokes, and celebrity appearances might at times feel too much, though they all serve a purpose. The abundance of the film is fragmentary, but this episodic nature of the film does not need to be seen as a flaw, since Altman skillfully keeps it all together. To my mind, the beginning of the film nicely introduces Altman's stylistic program and summarizes this ability of his to keep many threads together. The film begins with a long tracking shot, recording the life inside a Hollywood studio from casual dialogue about movies to awkward pitching producers have to listen to, which seems like a direct reference to Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" (1958) and its famous opening. Like this opening shot, the narrative of "The Player" is overall very self-aware; that is, the spectator is invited into taking the representation to account. One is often paying attention to the way things are structured rather than the things themselves. This might be at times alienating -- and intentionally so -- but Altman also strongly focalizes his narrative to the subjective point of view of his protagonist, enhancing the absurdity of the milieu and its surrounding events.

All of these narrative elements serve Altman's purposes of criticizing Hollywood. His criticism, though stark and poignant, is hardly hostile, however. Overall, "The Player" is a veritably lightweight film in the sense that it doesn't have the emotional heaviness of "3 Women" (1977) nor the structural complexity of "Nashville" (1975). The film does have its depth, but it is less striking -- for better and worse. All in all, "The Player" is a very enjoyable film, but it might be a slight letdown for people familiar with the director's earlier work. Nonetheless, a viewer who loves Altman's films will most likely cherish this one as well, perhaps in a fashion similar to Altman's relationship with Hollywood.

Very funny and very cynical

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 17 June 2023]

Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is a studio executive who listens to about fifty thousand pitches for films a year, but can only green light twelve, and even then he doesn't get the final say on whether or not a movie gets made. So not being a nice guy to begin with, he figures he's probably made enemies of quite a few people who never got past the gate that he keeps. Then he starts getting threatening letters on his windshield, delivered at the studio, etc. From a writer angry that he said he'd call him about his idea and never did. Mill decides that the angry writer must be David Kahane, and so one night he goes to a movie theater where Kahane is watching "Bicycle Thieves", they talk, then they go get drinks at a restaurant, but then Kahane starts angrily mocking him on the way to their cars and Mill beats him to death in a fit of rage. Stunned at what he did, Mill tries to make it look like a robbery and then leaves.

But this is not a noir - Mill doesn't panic or lie. When the police question him he admits that he met Kahane, admits their relationship, admits everything except the murder. The police suspect him from the start but he doesn't let their harassment get to him. On top of that the harassing letters continue - he killed the wrong writer.

I thought this film was hilarious. It is just so other-worldly with people having very odd reactions, almost like a David Lynch film, so that at times I think Mill is just daydreaming. But, no, these people really did say or do these weird things. And then there are all of the celebrities who are sometimes playing themselves and sometimes are playing a character in the film. And if you want to know why Lyle Lovitt of all people is playing a cop here you have to see the hilarious final scene. Basically the moral of this movie is, in the words of "Crimes and Misdemeanors" - " if you want a happy ending, you should see a Hollywood movie."

A hollywood spoof, and a good one at that

[Kimal9000 · 6/10 · 16 May 2019]

While this is a good movie, and it was something shockingly new at the time, I feel when seeing it again yesterday that it really isn't THAT mindblowing, as some reviewers here seem to think. To be honest, I fail to detect the suspense raved about here, and Tim Robbins act like he has arthritis, and talks like he has bad breath he is trying to hide. It IS a "clever" movie, and manages to make fun of all the archtypes, cornercutting and mainstreaming in the moviebusiness, but it never had me glued to the seat, tingling with fright or wiping away a tear. When a movie does none of that, and only make me chuckle now and then, it is not an 8 or a 10, it is as clear a 6 as they come.

Tedious and self-indulgent

[oecobius · 3/10 · 10 November 2013]

"The Player" is a film with a lot of technical effort and work on display, but the story is so weak, tiresome and meaningless that this film will disappoint anyone willing to look past the fluff. The opening shot of the film is the most entertaining part of the entire feature: a single long tracking shot featuring a variety of laughable Hollywood types going about their business. The film falls apart, however, when it expects us to actually care about these characters.

The Player is about an executive who is blackmailed by a mysterious rejected writer. This is a premise loaded with possibilities, but the protagonist bumbles through the weak plot as if determined to be as boring as possible. We aren't supposed to like him, but we don't actively dislike him either; we don't care at all what happens to him, and since the film's message is made clear within its first shot, there is no point to wasting 2 entire hours on this overrated film. The message is that Hollywood people are phony and hypocritical--hardly an inspired concept. And yet the film reiterates this tired, cheap idea over and over as if its audience is too stupid to grasp it the first time. This leads to a clichéd "clever" ending that might impress preteens but only serves to repeat the film's meager message for the umpteenth time.

I was hoping this film would move me or make me think, but The Player seems mostly comprised of filler. Even the romance subplot feels contrived and empty; the film presents Greta Scacchi's character as if she will have some depth and purpose, but she is a stereotypical vessel who, like most of the characters, ultimately acts as little more than a cheap plot device.

The film has many allusions to classic cinema, such as the motif of an abrupt zoom in on old film posters. This, however, is NEVER clever, subtle, or unexpected because the film hits you over the head with these allusions and overuses them relentlessly, as if Altman couldn't stop saying "See what I did there?? It's that thing some of you recognize!"

There is cute window dressing throughout the picture, but most frequently this film uses an unconventional or awkward shot just for the sake of being unusual. Many people have mindlessly praised this as brilliant and avant-garde, but there is no inspired meaning to the odd yet frankly drab cinematography. It does not make you think, it does not make you uncomfortable, it does not impart a message.