Blu-Ray Review: Robert Altman’s ‘The Player’ Has Lost None of Its Power

CHICAGO – Robert Altman’s “The Player” is one of the more important and influential films in the life of this film critic. It came out at a time when the film industry was in a bit of a slump and stood out as an original, creative, mesmerizing vision that I feel helped usher in a period of such productivity in the ’90s. It is a brilliant masterpiece that has lost none of its power almost twenty years after its release.

Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0

Tim Robbins gives one of the best performances of his career as Griffin Mill: an on-the-rise studio executive caught between professional and personal struggles. Power plays at work are threatening his livelihood while a writer threatens his life. Based on the excellent (but notably different in that it’s more about paranoia than the film) book by Michael Tolkin, “The Player” features everyone involved at the absolute top of their game. It’s one of the best films by one of the medium’s best directors ever.

The Player was released on Blu-ray on September 7th, 2010
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

If you’ve never seen “The Player” before, I’m jealous. I was in high school when the film came out and it completely changed the way I looked at the medium, opening the door to Altman’s amazing career, which I think I devoured between this and the next year’s equally-brilliant Altman film, “Short Cuts.” See it. Now. I think it’s more likely that a number of our readers probably saw “The Player” years ago and simply haven’t returned to it in ages. I’ll admit that I hadn’t seen it in probably a decade. Just ten minutes into the film, I was struck by how remarkably well it’s held-up. Everything about “The Player” works as much as the day that the film came out.

As for the Blu-ray, it’s a bit of a disappointment. The video transfer is lackluster, feeling almost too polished in its lack of grain but also not-quite-right in its color blend. The movie just doesn’t feel accurately transfered. And the release includes no new special features. Go buy it if you love the movie as I do and realize that the 4-star grade above is for the BD not for the 5-star film.

Special Features:
o Commentary by Director Robert Altman and Writer Michael Tolkin
o Additional Scenes
o “One on One with Robert Altman”
o Theatrical Trailer

[15]	By BRIAN TALLERICO [16] Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com [15]