The Player (1992)

The Player (US 1992 -  124min.)  directed by Robert Altman, written by Michael Tolkin.



"The Best Movie Ever Made!" - Griffin Mill

Altman was able to continue making outsider pictures with Hollywood money throughout his long career, despite his refusal to play according to any established set of rules.

At his very best he was in the top five of post-Golden Age American directors. Film such as MASH (1970), The Long Goodbye (1973), Nashville (1975) and Short Cuts (1993) are superb examples of the independent spirit flourishing within the Hollywood studio system.

Even his relative commercial failures (such as Popeye(1980), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) or Cookie's Fortune(1999)) have a great deal to be said in their favour in terms of invention and innovation.

"The Player" is a pitch black comedy mocking the mores of the Los Angeles film community in the late eighties/early nineties, when self-absorbtion and the pursuit of wealth became the new gods of cinema production.

Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is a studio vice-president whose job it is to "green light" pitches and scripts for production.

His venal life of self-gratification is disturbed when he starts to receive death threats from (apparently) a writer whose work he's previously rejected. After an ill advised drunken meeting with his prime suspect his life begins to spiral into a vortex of fear and potential ruin.

All the while his lifestyle and position are also under threat from the arrival of new kid on the block Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) who Robbins sees as a threat to his status and a potential usurper.

The final third of the film (the most successful part of all) deals with his attempts to engineer Gallagher's decline and fall while maintaining his own position.

All of which is neatly resolved in a laugh out loud final ten minutes.

Altman directs with enormous skill throughout : changing style to match the various stages of Mill's descent. The opening is full of cross-cuts and tracking shots (in the style of Short Cuts) emphasising Mill's maxim of "twenty five words or less" which he uses as a defence against aspirant film makers.

As the mood and scene move away from the studio and business and into the personal, Altman slows down the camera and produces some striking shots lingering on the various participants. A scene in a police station is over-lit and filmed in a flat style to emphasise Mill stepping out of his comfort zone and into a world he doesn't recognise or understand, except by reference to his own films.

Tolkin's script is full of barbed satire at the expense of the "system" and the "process" of film making and scores with most of it's shots. Never tipping over into pure comedy it builds the characters at the same time as poking fun and keeps the various threads of the story contained and moving forward throughout.

Tim Robbins gives a perfectly pitched performance as the egomaniac central character and Peter Gallagher is suitably oily and weasel like as his presumptive heir. There's also a fine performance from Richard E. Grant whose pitch to Robbins of a film about "truth" is beautifully done - it also sets up the final reel of the film and the very clever final scenes.

In fact, the supporting cast are all fine : especially Whoppi Goldberg and Lyle Lovett as a slightly demented pair of police officers and Cynthia Stevenson, Sydney Pollack and Dean Stockwell as those who enter Mill's orbit and are affected in different ways by his single minded pursuit of his own ends.
Even Greta Scacchi turns in an almost believable performance as a bohemian artist and Mill's potential saviour.

Altman's Hollywood is populated by recognisable "real" actors - almost two dozen pop up at various points, adding a veneer of realism to the film. This does have it's downside though, unless an actor in a cameo is referred to be name it's easy to assume that they are part of the cast. Grant's first appearance suffers from this - is he a new character or is he Richard E. Grant?
It's quickly resolved and a tiny fault - but there is a case to be made for the sheer weight of cameos being an unnecessary distraction; a layer too much on the cake.

Despite this minor quibble "The Player" is a superbly realised and beautifully finished film : hardly a moment is wasted and it's a joy and a pleasure to watch from beginning to end.