Review of What Just Happened (2008) by Eric H — 13 Sep 2009

Barry Levinson really hasn't found his way back to inspiration in a long long time. Seems like he's just been spinning his wheels turning out pot-boiler after pot-boiler and the best of them has been maybe just respectable enough to maybe keep the creative juices flowing. But from the looks of it, the juices haven't been flowing for a while. The last truly great Barry Levinson film was Wag The Dog and as old as it makes me feel to say this, that was 11 years ago.

I'll have to admit that there was a tinge of hope in me when I heard that Levinson was going to do a showbiz comedy with Robert DeNiro as a producer. The concept of What Just Happened sounded like it could be almost like a prequel to Wag The Dog, as though it were the previous adventures of the Dustin Hoffman character. The idea of that excited me. The reality of the movie is much less exciting.

The reality here is that it's a semi-autobiographical story written and adapted by Art Linson, a once powerful Hollywood producer who may be less powerful than he once was, but is still actively producing films. He produced Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Untouchables, Heat, Fight Club, and most recently Sean Penn's excellent Into The Wild. But the fact that he's still actively producing films means of course that his story stays pretty safely away from offending anyone by revealing any dirty little secrets that might upset anyone.

But if you stay away from revealing any specific secrets and you don't want to make any real indictment or even statement about the state of affairs in Hollywood as a whole, then there's very little to do in a Hollywood showbiz comedy. And that really shows here. The movie feels like an authentic impression of a few weeks in the life of a Hollywood producer, but it doesn't seem to want to say anything about those two weeks or even the producer himself. It feels kinda like a random Hollywood producer's Twitter stream. A lot of half-hearted bitching about money and egos, and every now and then a movie star shows up just for name recognition.

There is a structure and basic plot here that almost lends itself to a film about how Hollywood producers are simply middle management people working in an extravagantly financially wasteful and culturally irresponsible industry that might contribute to a financially wasteful and culturally irresponsible American public. It COULD support an idea like that. But it doesn't have the balls to say something that interesting. Instead it falls back on a really tired, running gag about Bruce Willis shaving his beard.

I'm really sad to say all of this. I was a big fan of Levinson's for a long time. He's got a great number of films in his filmography which I'd consider to be classics that are pretty close to timeless, and even closer to perfect. I'd really like to see a return to form for him, but since he's currently on an 11 year losing streak, it's just not looking great.