Robert Altman’s inside-Hollywood meta-comedy THE PLAYER is shot with a shoe-string budget but reverberates with sardonic, rapier-like kicks, and affixed with a chilling frisson that defies ethics and our expectation thanks to Michael Tolkin’s trenchant script which brings Tinseltown's treacherous attributes to the forefront.

Altman’s much eulogized opening gambit, a nearly 8-minute long-take in the lot of a Hollywood studio, vocally pays tribute to Orson Welles’ counterpart in TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), is a coup de ma?tre to be rewound and repeatedly viewed for its sheer coordination of the ensemble and the camera’s agility in motion. Taking the center stage is Griffin Hill (Robbins), a young producer whose job is to listen to screenwriter’s pitches of their ideas and to assess whether they are marketable enough to merit a go, and this producer-writer correlation is put under scrutiny as Griffin is dogged by anonymous, invective-scribed postcards, which he receives on a daily base, and after combing through telephone records, he gets the idea it is sent from David Kahane (D’Onofrio, bristling with ire and contempt), a bitter writer who might be rankled for receiving the short shrift. But gauging from Griffin’s quotidian workload and the ratio of pitches he must disregard (the studio has a yearly quota of 12 to green-light), we don’t get why Griffin is so sure it is David.

Trying to bury the hatchet by renewing his interest in David’s script set in Japan (Sofia Coppola’s LOST IN TRANSLATION arrives a decade later in 2003), Griffin seeks him out and "accidentally" kills him when verbal vitriol escalating into physical violence, here Altman shrewdly predates the occurrence with Griffin calling David’s home, and getting instantly bewitched by the latter’s girlfriend June Gudmundsdottir (Scacchi), an Icelandic painter, under a voyeuristic spell. So whether the subsequent accident is a homicide or manslaughter, the answer is quite out there.

The rest of story is against all odds, how Griffin gets away with the killing and lives happily ever after with June, does it sound like a joke? Yes, but the engagé Altman is in no fickle mood of maxing out Griffin’s quagmire before the anti-climatic reveal: his current post is in a perilous state of being superseded by the new blood Larry Levy (Gallagher), a diligent detective (Lovett) breathes down his neck closely and the relationship with his colleague-cum-girlfriend Bonnie (Stevenson) turns sour as he courts June with tenacious guilt stuck in his throat, in the end of the day, he gets what he wants not what he deserves, and the final turnabout of the fictive movie starring Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis is such a slap in the face of those who harbor an airy-fairy ideology of retaining a writer's integrity in this rotten industry, only tempered by Altman’s tongue-in-cheek mordancy that tactfully keep both industry insiders and outsiders entertained but not miffed, not to mention its effervescent star-spotingg game of umpteen celebrity cameos.

Tom Robbins is the recipient of Cannes’ BEST ACTOR award but unjustly fails to nab an Oscar nomination (the film per se is a 3-times nominee including a well-earned BEST DIRECTOR bid for Altman), who takes us through quite a rollercoaster ride with his portrait of Griffin par excellent, smirky, craven, vulnerable, besotted and careworn, all these facets are contributory to such degree of ambiguity that viewers are inwardly battling against their own conscience in terms of his denouement.Greta Scacchi is given a sizable role to send up the ostensibly exotic, free-spirited type (she might not even hail from Iceland) who just cannot say no to an opportunity of comfort and wealth like anyone else, and whose inner state is tellingly belied in their torrid love-making/confession-denial sequences, a fine achievement. Among the peripheral players, no one stands out significantly in the fray, except for awisecracking Whoopi Goldberg, who duly earns her stripes with tart and hilariouscomedy chops.

In retrospect, THE PLAYER is a thrilling return-to-the-game comeback for Altman after his nadir in the 80s, and is among the most phenomenal works tackling the Hollywood hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness by lending an honest-to-goodness spin salted with tacit irony.

referential points: Altman’s 3 WOMEN (1977, 8.2/10), COOKIE’S FORTUNE (1999, 7.9/10), GOSFORD PARK (2001, 9.1/10).

格里芬·米爾是一家電影公司的制片人，每天要從很多個劇本中挑選出極少的幾部拍成電影。早上來到制片廠他收到了一張恐嚇明信片，兩周內(nèi)一共收到了七張，加上?？怂怪破瑥S拉里·李維和他之間的競爭，他變得忐忑不安。格里芬來見自己的老板，老板希望他能和李維成為一個團隊。回到辦公室后他又收到一張揚言要殺死他的明信片。他便開始調(diào)查，發(fā)現(xiàn)一個六個月前被他拒絕的編劇大衛(wèi)·卡恩于是給他打電話，但接電話的是大衛(wèi)的女朋友瓊，格里芬得知大衛(wèi)去看電影后便來到電影院找大衛(wèi)，找到大衛(wèi)后，大衛(wèi)激怒了格里芬，格里芬殺死了大衛(wèi)。第二天格里芬上班后發(fā)現(xiàn)李維成為了自己的同事，制片廠的安保負責人因為格里芬和大衛(wèi)的死有關系和他發(fā)生了爭吵。隨后格里芬去參加大衛(wèi)的葬禮被瓊發(fā)現(xiàn)了，格里芬送瓊回家后回到制片廠，警察向他詢問了他和大衛(wèi)的一些事。格里芬和老板一起觀影時接到一通電話，他按照電話的指示來到約定地點，但突然出現(xiàn)了兩個編劇給他講劇本，最后那個人沒有出現(xiàn)，格里芬開車離開，卻在車上發(fā)現(xiàn)了一條蛇。格里芬打死蛇后來到瓊的家中并向她表白。上班后格里芬把昨晚聽到的劇本推給了李維。晚上他帶著瓊參加影片捐贈會，警察也一直在監(jiān)視著他，格里芬送瓊回家后邀請她下周一起去墨西哥。第二天一早，警察把格里芬?guī)У搅司帧８窭锓覐木只氐街破瑥S，安保負責人建議他不要去墨西哥，但格里芬不聽。格里芬在機場發(fā)現(xiàn)了警察，于是改變計劃帶瓊去沙漠溫泉，格里芬在沙漠溫泉接到律師迪克的電話，要他去警局參加目擊證人指認，由于證人指認錯誤，格里芬僥幸逃脫。

一年后，格里芬在下班的路上接到李維電話，聽取了李維推薦的編劇介紹的劇本《大玩家》，回到了家中。

和奧爾特曼學拍平凡劇

明明有那么多巧合

你卻幾乎看不出編劇的痕跡

因為確確實實都是想不到的劇情反轉

誰會想到

明明是抱著一顆虔誠的心來和談的

卻把人殺了

這也許就是落差造成的吧

自己已經(jīng)降低了身價

卻被人奚落

加之工作又要丟掉了

自己卻是唯一蒙在鼓里的人

這樣過失殺人就顯得合情合理了

直到25字出來

有點像《兇案連載》

忘了這個人是不是就是一開始他的父親參與《奪魂索》的，如果是這樣，就太棒了

剛開始你看到了一個紈绔子弟

形成了刻板印象

接下來他的精明卻讓你意外

（刻板印象特別好做文章）

最后的部分

為什么可以流暢和自然

是因為鏡頭一直拉遠了

再說《大玩家》的時候他和新婚燕爾的妻子在擁吻

而懸疑編劇成了麥格芬

換個功力差點的導演

怕是會在兩邊的電話人物切特寫

那么就不容易

出現(xiàn)這種

靜水深流的感覺了

嗯

學習了