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Bookmark this pageThe Player (1992)
Director: Robert Altman
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Shrewd Hollywood exec Griffin Mill (Robbins) is already paranoid that a rival may join the studio; but what of the anonymous postcards he's getting from a scriptwriter whose pitch he hasn't followed up? Rattled by the death threats, he decides (wrongly) that the likely sender is David Kahane (D'Onofrio). But when Kahane is found dead after a meeting with Mill and it becomes known that Mill is dating the writer's ungrieving lover (Scacchi), his troubles multiply... Altman turns Michael Tolkin's thriller into the most honest, hilarious Hollywood satire ever, even persuading some 60 celebs to play themselves. Besides the superb performances, photography, music and seamless blend of comedy and tension, what's finally so special about the film is its form. Altman refines his open, 'democratic' style of the '70s, to show an untidy world from numerous shifting perspectives, yet the film is far from chaotic. With its many movie references and film-within-a-film structure, it's forever owning up to the fact that it's only a movie. Only? Were more films as complex and revealing about people, society and the way we watch and think about films, today's Hollywood product would be far more interesting than it is.Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: Robert Altman
Producer: David Brown, Michael Tolkin, Nick Wechsler
Cast: Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Brion James, Cynthia Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Dean Stockwell, Richard E Grant, Sydney Pollack, Lyle Lovett, Dina Merrill, Peter Falk, Jeff Goldblum, Anjelica Huston, Jack Lemmon, Nick Nolte, Burt Reynolds, Susan Sarandon, Rod Steiger full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 124 mins
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