The Player 1992

 

The Player

Actors : Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher

Robert Altman's a biting satire on the Hollywood industry, The Player, has always been acknowledged by insiders as too close to the truth for comfort. Opening with a self-referential nine-minute tracking shot around the studio lot where producer Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) works, the story's intrigue begins with the first of several postcard death threats from a writer he's angered. After accidentally killing the wrong man, Mill moves from one star-studded lunch table to another. All the while he's hounded by the real writer and an obsession with "Ice Queen" artist June Gudmundsdotter (Greta Scacchi) who'd been the deceased's girlfriend. Altman's tradition of improvised dialogue makes each of the dozens of cameos a fascinating treat for movie fans. Blink and you'll miss Angelica Houston, John Cusack, Rod Steiger, or Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts who appear in the hilarious movie-within-a-movie finale. There's an endless list of terrific support from the likes of dry-witted Fred Ward, fly-swatting Lyle Lovett, or tampon-twirling Whoopi Goldberg. Aside from the star-spotting and a script that crackles with sharp dialogue, this also warrants acknowledgement for being the movie to set off an explosion of independent film in the Nineties.