Review – The Player

Robert Altman reaches fever pitch with this production. Almost everyone in the entire movie is famous. Indeed, the main fun of the picture is trying to tell the celebrities playing characters in the story from celebrities playing themselves. Tim Robbins stars as a self-centered studio executive being stalked by a disgruntled screenwriter. The twists and turns come across as a bit inside joke about the notorious antipathy between Altman and his writers based on the director’s tendency to let stars improvise their dialogue and actions. And boy is this ever not an exception to his usual style. Despite a vaguely Hitchcockian flavor and a clever moment or two, this one is little more than a celebrity culture buff’s wet dream. See if desperate