What Just Happened?

Coming Soon

to Sky Movies 05/12/09 00:00

Director: Barry Levinson

Stars: Robert De Niro, Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Kristen Stewart, Bruce Willis

Year: 2008 Running Time: 107 mins Rating:

Robert De Niro stars as Ben, an imploding movie producer in this raucous lid-lifting on the cut-throat world of Hollywood. Based on the memoirs of veteran money-man Art Linson, it’s a revelatory catalogue of celluloid duplicity as Ben has to keep two catastrophic projects afloat while juggling two broken marriages. An A-list cast also includes Catherine Keener as his ball-busting boss and Bruce Willis as a fungus-faced prima donna.

Review

Rain Man director Barry Levinson takes his scalpel to the Hollywood dream machine, and finds it rotten to the core in this black comedy.

De Niro is a middle-aged, twice married, Red Bull slugging producer who was a major player in his day but now in danger of being pensioned off. An all-star cast provide acerbic turns, including Catherine Keener as an ice cold studio boss and Bruce Willis as a narcisstic lardbucket.

A good sub-plot features Wincott’s disastrously “visionary” Sean Penn vehicle Fiercely, which has already cheesed off preview audiences with a scene were a dog gets its head blown off.