PEOPLE in Hollywood are egomaniacal back-stabbers. That’s the shocking news in Barry Levinson’s “What Just Happened,” a fairly toothless Tinseltown exposé.
Robert De Niro, more animated and loquacious than he’s been onscreen in years, plays Ben, a veteran producer who is dealing with major tsuris on two of his movies.
An awful-looking thriller called “Fiercely” has bombed at a test screening, and studio chief Lou (Catherine Keener) is threatening to recut the film unless Ben agrees to change the film’s ending, in which a dog is shot in the head.
This requires Ben not only to convince the movie’s pretentious British director (Michael Wincott), who can be bribed with drugs, but also the movie’s star, Sean Penn (playing himself), who rather amazingly attends the test screening.
At the same time, another, unseen studio chief is threatening to pull the plug on one of Ben’s other movies after its star, Bruce Willis (also playing himself, quite hilariously), shows up for costume fittings with an enormous beard.
When he isn’t shuttling between the two studios, Ben is trying to reconcile with one of his ex-wives (Robin Wright Penn), who has been sleeping with a screenwriter (Stanley Tucci) who pitches projects to Ben.
Ben also attends a funeral – “agent puts himself in turnaround,” says Variety of the suicide – where he learns his 17-year-old daughter (Kristen Stewart) from an earlier marriage was involved with the deceased.
He also uses the occasion to put pressure on Willis’ ulcer-prone agent (John Turturro), who is terrified of his client.
There are a few laughs scattered throughout this film, which screenwriter Art Linson based on his book drawing on his experiences as a veteran producer.
But it may be asking a lot of audiences these days to sympathize with a wealthy producer whose biggest problems include being stood up for lunch by a studio chief – a waitress reads an obscenity-filled note – and being pushed to the corner of a Vanity Fair cover shoot.
“What Just Happened” ends with the premiere of “Fiercely” at the Cannes Film Festival. An earlier version of Levinson’s movie shown at Sundance had “Fiercely” becoming a huge hit – something as unlikely as the inside-baseball “What Just Happened” finding much of an audience.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED
No “Wag the Dog.”
Running time: 110 minutes. Rated R (profanity, violence, sexuality, drugs). At the Lincoln Plaza, the Union Square, the Empire, others.