I rented The Player on the recommendation of a friend. This friend stated that The Player was one of the best films of 1992. And so, with that in mind, I sat down and watched the film. And if The Player was one of the best films of 1992, then 1992 must have been a horrible year for movies. This movie has received a lot of praise that it truly does not deserve. The first problem with the movie is the director, Robert Altman. Now, I generally don't like Altman's work, but this one is really bad. Altman decided that in a movie like this, all subtlety must be ironed out early. And so, when he wants to point out something which isn't really important to the plot, but fits thematically into the movie, such as a movie poster of 'M' for example, he'll have a character stand in front of that object, then the character would move away, and he'd hold on the object. It's the cinematic equivalent of driving a spike into your head with a sledgehammer. Another problem is the main character. He's a jerk. A huge jerk. I mean, come on, he's a studio exec. But the problem here is that he's such a jerk, and stupid to boot, that I had no sympathy for him. He deserved to be caught for what he did, and the sooner the better. I had no interest in seeing him evade the law or get off the hook. You know you have a problem when the audience is rooting for the main character to be incarcerated. The acting was good, not oscar worthy. Tim Robbins certainly wasn't as good as he was in The Shawshank Redemption, for instance. And the other actors couldn't even compare to Robbins' performance in this movie. Oh yes, and how can I forget the music? The score was technically perfect, and nice to listen to, but, once again, Altman has to make sure that no subtlety whatsoever escapes into the film. Whenever something bad is going to happen, the music suddenly becomes ominous and dark. Altman could have had someone come out with a sign saying "And now for...something bad!" and it would have been no less obvious. The plot was also somewhat obvious from the beginning. I saw this movie with that friend who recommended the film and his brother. Out of the three of us, only the friend who had seen it before didn't seem to know what was going to happen next. His brother and I were saying what was going to happen not just right before it happened, but a long time before it happened. It was sad. The only redeeming point of this film is a subplot involving a really good film idea being turned into a really bad film as it went through the studio system. And the resulting "bad film" looked more interesting than The Player itself. I'll never know how Altman came to be known as a great director, but it certainly wasn't on the shoulders of The Player.
Review of The Player
