...although I do appreciate the craftsmanship involved. That, along with Greg Bryk's strong screen presence -which seems to be an involuntary, natural aura that he projects even when his part asks for the kind of overly subdued performance that leaves little room for entertaining theatrics- and Michael Ironside's small part are the sole reasons why I'm giving this a three stars rating instead of the bare minimum that the site allows and my guts were stubbornly insisting on leaving.
Pedestrian, boring and unimaginative direction not only hampers an equally pedestrian, boring and unimaginative script but also exacerbates its flaws: soulless main characters, the most egregious one for starters, who engage in melodramatic and humorless conversations -peppered with an annoying over abundance of tired 'in-show-biz-dog-eats-dog' cliches-, that get increasingly redundant as the movie goes on and its overstretched plot runs out of wind. Meanwhile, a couple of criminally underdeveloped supporting characters meander around aimlessly looking for a purpose that the writers actively deny, which renders their predicament during the third, final act pointless to the emotionally detached viewer.
There's also, as I just mentioned, this dull and tired metaphor about the ruthlessness of entertaining industries running under this trainwreck's rails, but the less said about it the better; except, maybe, for the fact that everything this movie tried to tell, or imply, was better told and successfully implied almost three decades ago in Mike Nichols' vastly underrated "Wolf". A movie, by the way, from which this inferior copycat not only borrows most of its subtext but also dares to steal entire scenes, almost shot-by-shot, without understanding how and why those scenes worked perfectly in harmony with a coherent story, well-paced plot development and fully fleshed characters, both main AND secondary ones. In fact, it's better to enjoy your well-deserved leisure time revisiting -or experiencing for the first time, if you happen to be that lucky- Nichols' "Wolf" than wasting it on this self-important, derivative succedaneous. Don't make the same mistake I did and avoid it as much as you can.
