The Player

A remarkable work.

This is one of those films that I decided to watch without having a clear idea of ​​what I was going to find. I know that there are many people who like to know, read and even watch the trailers to decide what to watch, and I also do this moderately, but one of the sensations I like most in the cinematic experience is surprise, that feeling of pleasure, difficult to describe, that happens when a film pleases us and surprises us. Of course, the opposite could happen, the surprise could be bad, and the film could be magnificent rubbish. It happens! But I think you understand me...

Robert Altmann is not a director I know much about. As far as I remember, I've only seen one film of his, “Shortcuts”, and I wasn't particularly impressed. However, I think any director has their ups and downs, and you can't categorize anyone for just one film or two. In this film, Altmann surprises in a positive way, with very careful direction and an attention to detail that I was very pleased with. The cinematography is good, the editing is very well done, and the rhythm is quite pleasant, with no dead moments. The opening scene is a true cinematic masterclass, with almost ten minutes without cuts and lots of camera movement. And throughout the film, the feeling that prevails is that we are led to peek, in secret, into a story that no one wants to be known.

The script fits perfectly into this feeling of secrecy, taking us behind the scenes of the film industry through the hands of an arrogant and obnoxious producer who finds himself the target of anonymous death threats. He decides to question the person he suspects of, a screenwriter he ignored for many months, and ends up killing him. From then on, viewers are invited to follow him in his attempts to hide everything, along with the studio he works for, which has little interest in scandals. This is, obviously, a punch in the stomach of the Hollywood industry, where there is no shortage of unscrupulous, ar...

It’s the job of “Griffin” (Tim Robbins) to secure good storylines for his Hollywood studio and he’s good at filtering out the wheat from the chaff. The thing is, though, he’s getting on a bit and there are rumours abounding that he is on his way out. When “Levy” (Peter Gallagher) arrives from an erstwhile competitor, the writing looks more like it’s on the wall than on the page. He’s also been having some difficulties with a mysterious stalker whom he’s spurned, professionally, at some stage and who is now bombarding him with threatening postcards. Finally, there’s his more off than on relationship of convenience with “Bonnie” (Cynthia Stevenson) to which he is surprisingly indifferent. Under pressure and under siege, his tormentor starts to get under his skin so he determines to get to the bottom of that whilst cleverly manoeuvring his new rival into a cul-de-sac that can only end one way! What now ensues sees a plethora of genuine stars pepper a film that allows Robbins to show us a character that’s shrewd, ruthless and charmingly shallow whilst at the same time not averse to taking drastic measures. It’s those that attract the attentions of tenacious detective “Avery” (Whooping Goldberg) who has a dead body, nobody to pin it on and is curious about the burgeoning relationship between the girlfriend of the deceased (Greta Scacchi) and this outwardly brash and smarmy film executive. This has all the ingredients of a comedy thriller with loads of glamour, a good deal of pithy dialogue and it sends up the Hollywood mentality satirically and plausibly. Robbins is in his element and exudes a sort of selfish obnoxiousness that’s actually quite likeable as he treads on the eggshells of a fickle and unforgiving business. It packs a lot of story into two hours, raises a smile and an heckle in equal measure and is probably Robbins’s best performance to date.