Bowfinger

Continuing my plan to watch every Eddie Murphy movie in order, I come to Bowfinger (1999)

Plot In A Paragraph: A low budget filmmaker (Steve Martin) makes a movie with the biggest action star in the world (Murphy) without his knowledge.

For his last movie in the 90's Murphy starred opposite comedy legend Steve Martin and Heather Graham in Frank Oz's under rated Hollywood satire. He plays a big action star and his goofy brother. I remember thinking it was ok when it came out, and then I never watched it again. I enjoyed it so much this morning, I'm probably going to keep it. I laughed out loud a few times. Murphy looks like he is having fun playing dual roles, which he filmed in six weeks between finishing Life and starting Nutty Professor 2. The freeway scene is the funniest thing I have seen in an Eddie Murphy movie for a long time. Incredibly, executives at Universal wanted to cut that scene, because they felt it would be too expensive!! Martin replied he would not cut the funniest scene in the film.

This is probably the last time Steve Martin was funny. Heather Graham plays an actress named Daisy, she is allegedly based on Anne Heche. Like Daisy, Heche is from Ohio, was briefly romantically involved with a significantly older man, Steve Martin. Daisy's last lines about being involved with "the most powerful lesbian in Hollywood" are a reference to Heche's relationship at the time with Ellen DeGeneres. Of the rest of the cast, Christine Baranski and Terrance Stamp are both fun whilst Robert Donwey Jr has three scenes. This was a bad time to be a Downey Jr fan. He was out on parole, but was constantly missing regular drug tests, resulting in him going back to prison. It was at this sentencing he famously said of his addictions "It's like I've got a shotgun in my mouth, my finger on the trigger and I like the taste of gun metal."

Amazingly this is based on a real life story from 1927. A Russian filmmaker, covertly shot footage of Mary Pickford on holiday, and made a full movie, based around what he had.

I remember this opening the same weekend as The Sixth Sense. It got very good reviews, but was not a runaway hit. Which is a shame because it may be the last really funny movie either Murphy or Martin ever starred in.

Bowfinger grossed $66 million at the domestic box office (on a $55 million budget) to end the year, the 35th highest grossing movie of 1999.

Steve Martin, the funniest man alive in the 80s, lost his way in the 90s with the likes of "Leap Of Faith" and "A Simple Twist Of Fate". Now, after sterling work in David Mamet's "The Spanish Prisoner", Martin's return to writing and acting in straight-up comedy is surprisingly, reassuringly good. "Bowfinger" is a movie about movies, with all the potential for in-jokery and self-indulgence that brings, but for the most part dispenses with the clever-clever, isn't-Hollywood-shallow stuff to deliver laughs.

Martin's Bobby Bowfinger, a struggling producer desperate for a hit before he reaches the 'unemployable' age of 50, hits on the idea of putting action star Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) in his new sci-fi film "Chubby Rain" without the star knowing anything about it. Consequently, Bowfinger's inept crew follows Ramsey around in increasingly crazy and surreal fashion, utilising everything from 'Will Work For Food' signs made of foil to cranes mounted on trucks to get the shot they need. When Bowfinger stumbles across a Kit double (Murphy again) who will do anything the director asks including fetch the coffee, he starts to think all his birthdays have come at once. Meanwhile, the neurotic Ramsey, never that stable to begin with, begins to lose it altogether as he becomes convinced that sex-crazed pod people are stalking him.

It's a simple plot and, while the script throws a few barbs at Hollywood, it's played mainly for big laughs - and gets them. Heather Graham is spot-on as the ingenue literally just off the bus from Ohio who is prepared to sleep with anyone to get longer scenes, and Jamie Kennedy is all laconic wit as Bowfinger's long-suffering assistant. Really, though, it's Martin and Murphy's show. The original wild and crazy guy shows he hasn't lost all his manic energy in the title role, nor his wit with the sharp script. Surprisingly enough, though, the standout performance is Murphy's; he is brilliant as both the paranoid, highly-strung Kit and his dumb-but-sweet double Jiff. This might even be a career-best.

It's simple, lightweight and throwaway of course, but comedies that try to SAY something, even if they're good, often just don't make you laugh that much. Bowfinger will.

Steve Martin scored a bullseye with BOWFINGER, a smart and cleverly mounted comedy, which Martin also wrote, which stars Steve Martin as Bobby Bowfinger, a down and out Hollywood producer on the verge of going out of business who gets hold of a script to produce and wants big time action star Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) to star in it. When Ramsey won't give Bobby the time of day. Bobby decides to shoot the film without Kit's knowledge or consent. This premise is a wonderful set-up for some very funny sight gags. Eddie Murphy is on target as Kit Ramsey and as a milquetoast lookalike hired to do Ramsey's stunt work and close-ups. Murphy delivers one of his funniest performances as the lookalike and there are other effective contributions from Heather Graham, Jamie Kennedy, Christine Baranski,Terrence Stamp, and Robert Downey, Jr. A smart and winning comedy about the inner workings of modern Hollywood with a great screenplay and starring performance by Martin and Eddie Murphy in the dual role of a lifetime.

After seeing how good the combination of director Frank Oz and actor Steve Martin was in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," I wasn't surprised that the two would make "Bowfinger" interesting, too. It's not the caliber of "Scoundrels," but it's still fun to watch.

Eddie Murphy, as usual, is responsible for a lot of laughs as he plays two characters: this paranoid New Age-type follower and a very nerdy stand-in actor. In both roles, he's effective. Terrence Stamp, meanwhile, does his normal intense job of acting as the leader of a far-out "mind group" that one of Murphy's characters belongs. Heather Graham provides the sex appeal. Few women have made the transition from wholesome country girl to sleazeball in one movie as Graham does here. It's shocking but laughable at the same time, which pretty much describes this odd film. Nice to see Steve Martin back in form, too.

Bowfinger How does Bobby Bowfinger, Hollywood's least successful director, get Kit Ramsey, Hollywood's biggest star, in his ultra low-budget film? Anyway he can. With an ingenious scheme and the help of Kit's eager and nerdy brother, Jiff, an ambitious and sexy wanna be actress and over-the-hill diva. Bowfinger sets out to trick Kit Ramsey into the performance of a lifetime.

To describe Bowfinger, it is a stupid idiotic film, which works. I thought it was terrific. Steve Martin (who wrote the film) plays the part of a hopeless director perfectly. While the other main star Eddie Murphy, again pulls off another great double as both Kit and Jiff Ramsey. Is there an end to this guys talent? i look forward to seeing Nutty Professor 2 soon. Heather Graham was again at her sexy best as Daisy. The other stand out actor for me in this film was Terrence Stamp. Can you remember him from Superman 2? That's right he was General Zod and in Bowfinger he is Terry Stricter, Kit's Councillor. His role was also well done. A final mention to one star, but with four legs, Mindy (aka Betsy) who was used perfectly. Animals who star on any movie or TV show have a special talent, this dog is no exception. Bowfinger is also a movie within a movie, which at any time must be hard to shoot, but thanks to Aussie director Frank Oz, Bowfinger comes out beautifully. Bowfinger Scores 3.5/5 Stars or 7/10. If you want a laugh see this wild, funny comedy!