You have to admire this guys guts! The Player is basically a giant F U to the entire Hollywood system. He was never really one to make traditional Hollywood films, or work in traditional manners. He never had a Hollywood aesthetic nor did he want one. He was a maverick in every sense of the word.
The Player stars nearly everybody in Los Angles and the surrounding cities. Its lead is Tim Robbins as a squarmy studio executive who has a stalker. This movie reminds me a little of the Spike Jonez film Adaptation. Or at least as much as any film reminds me of that movie. It begins to take on the personality of and themes of the story it is telling. This is meta like a mutha.
This is a great decent into madness movie. Every time Robbins tries to better his position, he screws something up. In most films the protagonist is doing the right thing and just getting the wrong response. Here, Altman tells a story where a guy does the wrong thing and skates by. Not unpunished, but not evenly compared to his crimes.
The movie opens with a long tracking shot that introduces most of the main characters and tells about their story lines. It also makes a reference to Touch of Evil. Which also has a long tracking opening shot.
Altman was a geniuses and he is sorely missed. I give The Player ★★★★.
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