Hollywood has been making movies about itself nearly since the beginning, and for that matter Hollywood has always been making just as many cutting and biting tales of the industry as it has rose-tinted romantic visions of a Hollywood that perhaps has never actually existed ‘in reality’. 

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Reality and illusion of course are at the heart of most movies about the industry, but perhaps no more so than here in the world of Altman’s The Player. A film he commonly referred to as his fourth comeback. Now there’s not many directors you can say have had four major eras in their career and for that matter had that fourth one launched by a film as cynical, cutting and brilliantly satirical and meta as this one is – especially not about the industry he will once again be welcomed into ironically following this films major critical and surprisingly commercial success, making back it’s budget in just under a month of its release. The film comes from a screenplay by Michael Tolkin, from his novel of the same name and is perhaps the tightest script Altman ever produced, in a career defined by improvisation and loose and overlapping dialogue. This film still has those elements, but they are used for punctuation of reality into absurd situations. Most of the time Tolkin is relishing in being able to fuel his pages with the His Girl Friday rat-a-tat-tat dialogue that so many films about films are fuelled by, this time all with a poisonous slant. At a certain point however it grows blurred between who is bringing the playfulness to the film, Tolkin or Altman. Overall the structure, characters and the majority of the narrative can be clearly and nearly attributed to Tolkin’s sensational screenplay, but one can’t help but note the extensive way Altman is having fun with himself too in a major way. Every major Altman criticism is here taken to a whole new level. ‘There’s too many stars’ – Well here we are going to quite literally populate the field of extras with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Jack Lemmon silently playing on the piano, just in the background of a scene is but one example in a field of about 30 of the most famous names in film appearing for what range from silent extra roles, to talking cameos, to major parts of the films finale. All playing themselves to add a further meta level to the proceedings. The number often floated is that if this production gave all these actors their normal offers the film would be budgeted around the $100 million mark as a minimum, instead they either took scale or took nothing at all. The tandem to this point is that then you will have some huge stars playing roles as characters rather than themselves, Whoopi Goldberg and Sydney Pollack for example, both of which when first introduced you have to check your mental game with the film and recalibrate to the fact they are not playing themselves, instead playing integral detectives and lawyers to the plot. It’s a fun and humorous game that Altman is playing with us and makes the film fun and deeply watchable.

There’s no plot – Another classic Altman criticism, well here it’s void. But not really in a subversive way, this film is just a downright solid great suspense thriller. This film has plot aplenty as our lead character of Griffin Mills conducts and plays off against one another his business counterparts, whilst attempting to navigate a new relationship and get away with murder. Which leads us into another classic Altman perceived foible;  There’s no ending – Well perhaps this The Player’s greatest stroke. Here you get the hap-hap-happiest ending of all, logic and reason be damned, everything is in a stroke of genius thrown away, leaving nothing but the perfect Hollywood ending. I guess the biggest thing else to say about the film is the centre star of the feature, that of Tim Robbins. Once could go on for hours discussing the rest of the ensemble, however without Robbins as a firm, nervy, manic and mannered centre, we would have no film, or at least would have a  far looser affair. Altman is on the absolute cynical top of his game here and Robbins is the core to this film that marked as Altman said himself – his fourth comeback!

 - Thomas Carruthers