Robert De Niro, Director Barry Levinson Wade Through Hollywood’s Mud in ‘What Just Happened?’

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:27:13 -0700

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – In his long and distinguished career, Robert De Niro has probably seen it all when it comes to Hollywood excesses and quagmires. Given that experience, he seems the perfect choice to portray an aging film producer and power broker whose influence is on the decline.

“What Just Happened?” teams De Niro with veteran director Barry Levinson (“Rain Man,” “Good Morning, Vietnam,” “The Natural”) in a provocative inside look at the current film business. De Niro is a producer named Ben whose latest film (starring Sean Penn) is in major trouble.

Bruce Willis in “What Just Happened?”.
Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures

His director (Michael Wincott) refuses to cut a scene that makes preview audiences squeamish.

Meanwhile, Ben’s other film (which is about to go into production) is also experiencing problems because star Bruce Willis (playing himself) is rejecting all the physical requirements necessary for the leading male role.

Ben is now a producer on the brink.

The drug-addled director requires constant reassurance, the studio executives are depending on his delivery of the latest Bruce Willis film and his estranged wife wants him in therapy so they can learn to live apart.

As an answer to the question of the movie’s title, it seems that everything can collapse to nothing in Tinseltown.

The film is based on a memoir by producer Art Linson (who also wrote the screenplay). Proving that truth is stranger than fiction, the farcical narrative delves into how egos essentially run Hollywood and how those egos are largely attached to dysfunctional human beings.

De Niro gives an organic and low-keyed performance. His Ben is a fighter who’s used to the problems and childish attitudes in his chosen profession. He just never counted on everything happening at once. There’s never the explosive De Niro we’re often used to.

Robert De Niro in “What Just Happened?”.
Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures

He’s just a man who’s calmly standing on the high ledge and wondering if he’s about to jump or be pushed. The supporting cast is hilarious and clearly relishes getting back at the industry with direct stabs. John Turturro is exceptional as Dick Bell (an agent who has more obstacles than answers).

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Bruce Willis (playing a monstrous version of himself) shows off some great comic chops as he petulantly mouths off to every underling who dares to cross his “star”.

Can Willis get nominated for an Oscar for portraying Willis?

The only weakness is the redundancy of the conflict. The film clocks in at about 30 minutes too long (it’s 107 minutes in total) and has the same problems repeating themselves. “What Just Happened?” ends in a whimper – as real life tends to do – rather than a bang.

But for those who think Hollywood is a crumbling Babylon or (on the other side of the coin) a collaboration of “creative” souls, “What Just Happened?” is the ticket to the “show” of the business. Just add the six-buck tub of popcorn.

“What Just Happened?,” which is directed by Barry Levinson and features Robert De Niro, Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Catherine Keener, Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, Michael Wincott and Bruce Willis, opened on Oct. 17, 2008.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Adam Sandler is White Ladies Man in Judd Apatow’s ‘You Don’t Mess With the Zohan’

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:01:00 -0700

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – In the relatively anemic anthology of recent Adam Sandler flops, “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” hangs above with comedic charm and a nonsensically amusing plotline. The story is divisively intermingled with racial and ethnic sensitivities between the Israelis and Palestinians.

At first, it even feels like a scribe sat down for a few weeks, slammed back a few brewskies and toked daily on the good ganja while attempting to ink a forcefully novel plot.

Emmanuelle Chriqui as Dalia in “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”.
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

Surprisingly, its idiosyncratic nature tends to work as you build esteem for the libidinous man Adam Sandler has transformed into.

While Sandler has played the full gamut of roles in recent memory, this time he’s actually a Thor who beckons women to his sexual mercy.

Sandler as Zohan is the white version of the legendary Tim Meadows character The Ladies Man from “Saturday Night Live” but with a thick Israeli accent.

Zohan is an Israeli counter-terrorist commando who fakes his own death in order to pursue his unlikely and embarrassing dream of becoming a hairstylist in New York.

To make matters more outlandishly canned, Zohan’s arch nemesis, Phantom (played by John Turturro), has a similarly humiliating reverie: selling shoes.

Lainie Kazan is welcome motherly relief – except when she’s revealed utterly nude from the rear and causes an eruptive audience gasp – and Rob Schneider, of course, can’t let an Adam Sandler flick make it to the big screen without joining him on it.

As well, you might have noticed Dave Matthews in the film, but I didn’t.

In “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,” Adam Sandler stars as Zohan: an Israeli commando who fakes his own death in order to pursue his dream of becoming a hairstylist in New York.
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

Hollywood hands Sandler a bone throughout the course of his reinvented, Jason Bourne-like ways and affords him the moves, styles and suave demeanor even Sandler in real life would envy.

Indeed, he epitomizes making love and not war and even isn’t shy about “making sticky” with women who had to be pushing 80. Whew.

The one woman he fancies the most and doesn’t return your stomach’s digestive matter is the beautiful and enormously unlikely love interest Sandler would never actually touch with a 100-foot stick: Emmanuelle Chriqui.

The Israeli Zohan begs the Palestinian siren to work for her in her New York hair salon.

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She quixotically accepts – because Sandler’s co-written script with the on-fire Judd Apatow told her to – despite his having zero experience and initially thinking Paul Mitchell himself would hire him.

Mitchell later is wasted with an unnecessary cameo where he absurdly calls Sandler to implore his employment.

Due to Zohan’s Hollywood-blessed ability to rack in the female clientele with his sexual deviance, Sandler denies what was once his ultimate fantasy in an ultimately scripted act of employer loyalty.

This script worked its magic best when you temporarily forgot it was trying ever-so delicately to roil you silly out of your seat but fell flat when its corniness unnaturally tried much too hard.

While one could respect the amped-up Hacky Sacking, Hacky Sacking a live and meowing cat? Now come on. That’s even more cruel than squirrel fishing.

“You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” opened everywhere on June 6, 2008.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com