29.01.23
The Player is a real enigma of a film. One on hand it’s incredibly cynical, but simultaneously, it’s positively joyous. It’s full of A-List actors, but is acutely ‘anti-Hollywood’. The motives of the film’s central characters are selfish and slimy, but the film is all surface smiles, shiny suits and vacations to Acapulco.
I enjoyed it on the whole, despite it feeling like a ‘back-patting’ exercise of Altman trying to cram as much talent into the 2 hours as possible. Sometimes the cameos are as short as 10 seconds with no audible dialogue, which becomes rather annoying. I feel like a lazy way of making the audience interested in what’s on the screen. There is an overreliance on this device being used repeatedly (apparently there are 65 cameos!) at the expense of some of the more interesting characters in the film, such as Whoopi Goldberg as the detective, and Tim Robbins’ Icelandic love interest. I did feel that the ending lands well though and has a sweet irony, which ties it up nicely.
Maybe some viewers will have fun pointing at the screen every time a famous face pops up, but I found that element slightly tiresome despite this being a really well-written and ‘of its time’ nineties satire.