The Player (1992)

Starring: Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Cynthia Stevenson, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Vincent D’Onofrio, Brion James, Lyle Lovett, Sydney Pollack, and Jeremy Piven, with cameos from Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts, Burt Reynolds, John Cusack, Anjelica Huston, Harry Belafonte, Jeff Goldblum, Malcolm McDowell, Andie MacDowell, Peter Falk, Susan Sarandon, Cher, Elliot Gould, Gary Busey, Nick Nolte, James Coburn, David Alan Grier, Jack Lemmon, Jill St. John, Lily Tomlin, and Robert Wagner
Grade: D-

I may be alone in this, but The Player is heavily overrated. I have no clue why this has a near-perfect rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Summary

To open, we get this long opening sequence showing us the activeness of a Hollywood studio lot and the people that inhabit it.

We see writer’s executive Griffin Mills (Robbins) getting a pitch from Buck Henry about The Graduate Part II, story editor Bonnie Sherow (Stevenson) getting a pitch from some other writer on the sidewalk before they are interrupted by the errand guy who fell, Steve Reeves (Piven) doing a tour, and some executives talking about how they hear rumors of big changes coming to the studio and how Griffin might be replaced because of it.

Later, as we see Griffin in his third pitch meeting of the sequence, he gets a postcard that says, “I HATE YOUR GUTS ASSHOLE!”. He seems perturbed but moves on with his day. After agreeing to meet up with Bonnie (they’re dating) for lunch later on, he goes to meet studio head Joel Levison (James). Griffin goes into Levison’s office even though he’s in a meeting. There, he’s introduced to Reggie Goldman (Randall Batinkoff), son of Harvey Goldman, because he’s thinking about getting into production. After having this unimportant conversation about Reg wanting the numbers of many known Hollywood actresses, Griffin leaves and asks a worker at Levison’s office named Celia (Dina Merrill) if he should be worried about Larry Levy (Gallagher) taking his job. She reminds him Levy is at Fox, but Griffin knows that doesn’t mean shit in this world. However, before he gets an answer, Celia is interrupted with a phone call. Griffin meets Bonnie and some others for lunch, and the others also ask about the potential of Larry Levy coming to the studio. To make matters worse, Levy is there at the same restaurant talking with Anjelica Huston and John Cusack about a project. Griffin sees this, so he greets the two once they leave Levy.

Following lunch, Griffin finds a postcard in his windshield from the disgruntled writer from earlier. This time it reminds Griffin that he said he would “Get back to him” after he told Griffin his idea and wanted a follow-up. On the other side of the postcard is a picture of Humphrey Bogart holding a gun. Later at work, it’s revealed he’s gotten seven of these threatening messages in two weeks, so his secretary encourages him to tell studio security. However, Griffin doesn’t like this idea because the unwanted attention couldn’t come at a worse time since he’s already worried about losing his job. She then reminds him he has a party at one of his lawyers’ house, Dick Mellen (Pollack). Griffin takes Bonnie to the party. Once they are separated for a bit, Griffin tells Dick about the threatening messages he’s been getting. Soon after, Griffin sees Larry Levy at the party and gets pissed off, asking Dick if the rumors of him losing his job to Larry are true. Mellen says Larry isn’t taking his job, but there’s a good chance they’ll work with each other.

Later that night, Griffin and Bonnie hang in Griffin’s hot tub and talk about some scripts. Griffin talks of a pitch he had that was pretty good but is stuck on a story point. As he talks about it to Bonnie though, we realize that it isn’t a pitch, it’s what’s happening to him right now with this mysterious writer. He just tells Bonnie that the characters’ job titles are different but generally, it’s the same scenario. He asks her how long it would be before the harassing becomes dangerous. She says it would be five months, which calms him a bit because he agrees. The next day, Griffin goes to meet Levison at a restaurant. This comes right after Larry just got done talking to him. He tells Levison that if he has to report to Larry, he’ll quit. Levison retorts that he can’t because Griffin has a year-and-a-half left on his contract, and he’ll sue him if he tries. Levison says he just wants them to all be on the same team. After saying he’ll let him know later today, Griffin goes back to his office to find a new letter. This one says directly that the writer wants to kill him. He tells the errand boy and the secretary to go to the mail room to see exactly who brought this letter to him. Following their exit, Griffin goes back to his office. After a bit of research by looking at his own records, he comes to the conclusion that the person responsible is David Kahane (D’Onofrio). He drives to the man’s house and calls, but his girlfriend June Gudmundsdottir (Scacchi) answers. As they talk, Griffin watches June through the window. When he introduces himself, she says David has referred to him as a “dead man”.

Well, if that’s not a clue, I don’t know what is.

Regardless, David isn’t there, as he went to go see Bicycle Thieves at a theater in Pasadena. Interestingly enough, Griffin starts talking to June on the phone about her and her life, and an attraction between them is evident. After this elongated phone call, he heads over to the showing of the movie. Following him questioning the wrong person once the show is over, he eventually finds David. After some conversation with a visibly antsy David, they agree to go to a bar to talk things out. David talks about how in college he studied abroad in Japan and how he’ll never forget it. Griffin says he should write about it, so David reminds him that he did and that’s what the script was about. Realizing he’s screwing himself, Griffin gives David an offer to write something, though he can’t guarantee it will be made, as long as he stops sending the postcards. David sees through the bullshit, refuses the offer, and leaves. In the parking lot, they argue some more once David starts to antagonize Griffin about his approach and how Larry Levy is taking his job. Griffin presses on David’s car door as he tries to ask him to forget all of this, but David swings the car door back on him, and it knocks Griffin off a ledge and onto some concrete. David goes to check on him, but an enraged Griffin throws him down and drowns him in a sizeable puddle. Realizing what he’s just done, he tries to stage it and make it look like a robbery before he leaves the scene.

The next day, all the studio executives have a meeting, with Griffin arriving late. At the meeting, Larry makes a point that they are overpaying writers for scripts and obnoxiously tells them how easy it is to make a story by having them read a headline off a newspaper and him responding in seconds on how it can be a movie. As the newspaper is being passed around for Levy’s little game, Griffin notices that one of the headlines is about David Kahane’s murder. Back in Griffin’s office, studio chief of security Walter Stuckel (Ward) calls out Griffin for what happened the night before and guesses every bit of it, explaining to him that Pasadena homicide already has a full report on it because of all the witnesses that saw Griffin as one of the last people to talk to him. The police do think it was a botched robbery however, so Griffin admits to seeing David that night but not to killing him. Walter tells him that it’s his job to protect studio executives, especially if they are under suspicion for murder, since profits are down, and the company could potentially be taken over. After Walter starts questioning him harder about the details, Griffin once again insists he’s not a murderer. Immediately after this, he gets a fax of a postcard that says, “Surprise!”.

Griffin killed the wrong person!

Now, not only is he under suspicion of killing someone (and he did), but the actual person that wants him dead is still alive! With the added bonus of the stress coming from his job, Griffin could not be in a worse situation.

My Thoughts:

The Player is one of the highest-reviewed films of the 1990s, regularly on lists of the “Best of” or “Most Underrated”, but I could not get into it.

Here’s the thing, I like the idea of satirizing Hollywood and making fun of the pretentiousness of it all, the inner dealings and attitudes of executives, and the harshness of the filmmaking business. We don’t see it a lot, so I can appreciate it. Including a murder plot in the middle of it all was an intriguing addition as well, but I just didn’t care. It starts with Tim Robbins. If it’s not The Shawshank Redemption, I’ve realized that I just don’t fuck with him as the lead. I’ve watched enough of his movies to realize this. Griffin Mill is an interesting character put in the most compromising position possible, especially after he starts dating the girl of the man he killed, further complicating his own situation. However, Robbins’s handling of it all just doesn’t seem realistic to me. He’s not likeable enough for me to want him to win either. Part of the problem is the writing. When he’s talking to June for the first time, he stares at her through the window of her house. Are we supposed to find this sweet or something? Are we supposed to still like this main character? I found it pretty creepy. It boggled my mind even more after a visibly shaken Griffin (after killing a snake planted in his car by the guy who wants to kill him) shows up at her house shirtless and admits to staring at her through the window.

On top of that, he flat out says he wants to “make love” to her, and it somehow goes well after this! What?! Why is June practically floored by this creepy revelation and delivery of such a statement? She accepts everything and tells him to ask her on a date?! What? Why is this relationship working? When they eventually have sex (Oddly enough, it was a well-filmed scene), Griffin decides this is the moment he should tell her he killed David. First of all, why tell her in the middle of sex? Second of all, do you want to know her response? She says she loves him! What?! Did you not just hear him? He’s responsible for the death of your ex-boyfriend! He’s a murderer!

As likable as June is, there’s something totally off about her that is never addressed. She has no character flaws to speak of. She even lies about being from Iceland, which is an odd thing to lie about, and they never go back to it. What’s up with this girl? Following David Kahane’s funeral, she says she felt like how she did when her parents died, “I didn’t feel anything at all”. Are you okay? What happened to your parents? What did you do immediately after this? What led to you being here right now? Oh, we never know, and no one seems to care! Griffin Mills, because of Tim Robbins’s awkward performance, quickly becomes a main character that I do not care about at all. The situations are eventful enough to keep your attention and make you feel as anxious as he does, but he’s just unlikable. He’s creepy, kind of a dick, and doesn’t show a good enough side to him outside of work where I want to root for him. I didn’t even hate him after the murder beat. Hell, I didn’t even hate him once he left Bonnie, even though she did nothing wrong. June just felt like the better fit. I just didn’t care about him or anything he had to offer! He didn’t do enough in either position to show me why I should like or hate what he’s doing. The sole thing keeping me going was that I knew Larry Levy was a piece of shit. It was the only thing that got me to root for Griffin. Even then, the job felt secondary to the rest of the film once the romance picked up.

All things considered, the romance was decent, but there were too many questions about it that stopped me from enjoying it.

For being a black comedy, there were very few genuinely funny moments. If anything, these moments involved Whoopi Goldberg’s role as the charismatic homicide detective. I liked how easily she was able to switch from this nice and fun-loving cop that doesn’t seem to want any trouble, to a demanding, I-don’t-take-shit-from-no-one cop still brandishing a smile on her face. Watching her drill Griffin with questions at the police station was a great scene, but it ended in the weirdest way possible. Griffin gets all mad at the “implications” (or direct questions), and everyone in the entire department laughed at him like he shit his pants or something. It’s not that funny people! I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish with this scene, and I don’t know why it results in him becoming this cold-hearted maniac in the scene following it. I’d understand if he was mad, but his responses to Bonnie seemed completely out of character at that point in the film.

A lot of the positive reviews I hear about the film revolve around the editing and direction by Robert Altman. I can’t deny this fact, but it’s not enough for me to give it such a high review. The actual story is much more important. To start the movie off, we open with this seven-minute-long, uninterrupted opening sequence. This was cool, but what’s the big deal? Nothing interesting happened. It just showed us how active a workday can be for these people. It’s impressive from a technical perspective, but it wasn’t crazy or anything. There’s also the movie references and metaphors from pictures on the postcards to a myriad of other things but honestly, I didn’t think anything of it. Most of it felt way too on-the-nose for me to be impressed at what was being foreshadowed or referenced to. At one point, we see a picture of Alfred Hitchcock, and this is supposed to indicate trouble is looming. It was pretty obvious to begin with but throwing in a picture of Hitchcock makes it even more so. The Player is also known for all the famous celebrities appearing in cameos. On one hand, it added a lot to the film they were trying to create. Though the film is focused on the executives, seeing movie stars walk by in plain sight and how executives interact with them (and how they both actually think of each other once they are out of each other’s faces) adds a sense of realism not previously seen in a movie like this. On the other hand, besides building exposition and making sense of the world-building, do the numerous scenes involving these stars add anything to the movie whatsoever?

No, none of it actually mattered. If all those scenes were cut, I would’ve given this film the exact same review.

The realistic depiction of Hollywood, and the darker, behind-the-scenes mess that isn’t talked about a lot is a world worthy of a movie. The Player does a solid job of bringing this world to life and helping us understand the thought process of the people backstage pulling the strings. On a date with June, Griffin puts things into perspective on a whole different level, saying that at his job, he can only say “Yes” to twelve scripts/ideas a year. The problem is that he hears about 50,000 pitches. This shows us the stress Griffin is under, the pressure the studio puts everyone in to find a moneymaker, and the struggle of the artist/screenwriter. One line out of this script is able to give us that much information. Scenes like this really give us an in-depth look on the tough parts of the job and the unfortunate mindsets of some people responsible for greenlighting the movies you love and hate. I think because of this “takedown” of Hollywood and the shitbags that can encompass it is the reason why this was so highly reviewed. It felt like a writer’s fantasy because of how realistically things are portrayed for all to see, especially with the bleak ending reminding us how it’s always about money. It felt like a revenge picture, but I wouldn’t call it bitter. It was more of acceptance, with the writer exposing what happens with the career of a Hollywood exec but also understanding that it’s the nature of the business.

I do respect the jabs though, with Griffin announcing the goal of the studio being that they want to focus on bringing back the intelligent art in films rather than the commercialized blockbusters (which we know is bullshit because everything is about money) and the result being the fictional film Habeas Corpus. The funniest part was the British filmmaker refusing to sell out when he was first pitching it and subsequently going completely against everything he argued for to appease the audience and the studio to make money. He always argued his original ending was “real” and the woman’s death in his script really happens, but once we see him sell out for the studio, it’s almost as if The Player is telling us this is what really happens. If that doesn’t show you the sad realism of what moviemaking has become, I don’t know what will. Furthering this, you also have the scene in which Larry Levy shows us how to eliminate the writer from the writing process by showing us how easy it is to make a film based off a news headline. It’s the most ignorant, pretentious thing you may ever see if you’re a creative person, especially one that dedicates their life to storytelling and filmmaking. However, I bet you this is the exact thought process of certain execs. They’re always going to look to find the cheapest way to make a movie that will give them the maximum amount of profit, rather than paying a proven writer what they deserve.

You can see it today with the arguments against artificial intelligence. Don’t let these executives win! The writers are important! These higher-ups just don’t realize it and think they’re smarter than everyone.

Of course, when you add in the backstabbing and the constant want to be ahead of your peers to stay on top, it creates for an exciting atmosphere in these board meetings like when Griffin finds the guys with the Habeas Corpus idea to give to Larry, so he fucks it up and Griffin looks good because of it. Seeing the innerworkings of the studio ended up being the type of stuff I was a lot more interested in, to the point that the murder plot stopped being as exciting as it once was. Honestly, it never was that important anyway because…. (SPOILERS)

SPOILERS

…We never found out who wrote the fucking postcards in the first place!

The ending felt like an unsatisfied slap in the face because Griffin offers money for the whole thing to go away and the guy accepts it, with Griffin getting to live a happy life with June. Really? That was it? This didn’t sit right with me. I can accept the bad winning in some cases but after such a disappointing follow through after the David Kahane murder, I was expecting a much bigger ending worth my time. This was not it. The lineup scene at the police station with Detective Paul DeLongpre (Lovett) getting picked was all by chance, though in terms of humor, I chuckled for a moment because Whoopi was mad. However, for a climax, I was a bit annoyed. Even by the end of the film, I’m not sure what the goal was for the audience. Is it to show us this is the circle of life in Hollywood? Is it to show us this is the real “Hollywood ending”? Is it metaphorically telling us that the bad guy wins, and the only way to get ahead in the business is to become that bad guy? It’s possible, but they couldn’t have done so in such a less satisfying way, along with the predictable ending with the final conversation with the writer and Griffin.

Plus, I just felt indifferent to Griffin and his whole situation, despite him becoming the dickhole exec Levison once was.

There’s a lot of fascinating discourse in The Player that sets up the movie well. Watching us pull back the cover to see real Hollywood at work is always fun to see, especially because you know the screenwriter and director that took the project want the audience to know how things actually are. Even so, The Player succeeds in only this. The plot goes in three different directions but doesn’t satisfy in any of the paths it takes, the characters say a lot but the last thing you get is investment in any of them, Tim Robbins disappoints once again, it’s not funny, the characterizations are all over the place, and the cameos of a million stars don’t offer much to the plot at all. Actually, besides Malcolm McDowell, Bruce Willis, and Julia Roberts, none of the cameos were even entertaining.

I don’t see why this movie is looked back on so fondly. A lot of ideas are presented to us, but a lot of disappointment follows it.

Fun Fact: Chevy Chase was interested in the role of Griffin, but Warner Bros. didn’t feel the same way.