Bowfinger
Rated PG-13
Opens Friday, August 13
If only Ed Wood were alive to see this. It's a movie within
a movie: a potentially bad movie about making a bad movie--thinking
it will be a great movie--that turns into a great comedy.
That's Bowfinger, and it's hilarious.
Steve Martin stars as Bobby Bowfinger, a down-on-his-luck
Hollywood producer determined to make a sci-fi movie about
aliens taking over the earth. Entitled Chubby Rain,
the movie has a script that Bowfinger considers a masterwork--and
worthy of a large star to carry it. He rounds up a group
of "talent." There's the thespian Carol (Christine Baranski),
the ingenue off the street, Daisy (Heather Graham), his
trusted cameraman who steals and lies for him (Jamie Kennedy),
and a group of illegals whom Bowfinger literally grabs from
a border escape and enlists as crew. The only person missing
is the big star he wants for the role, Kit Ramsey (Eddie
Murphy). After realizing there is no way in hell Kit would
talk to the unconnected and unimpressive producer, let alone
act in his cheap film, Bowfinger comes up with an ingenious
idea: make the movie starring Kit, but without Kit knowing
it. Bowfinger's rationale: "Did you know that Tom Cruise
didn't know he was in that vampire movie until two weeks
later?"
Using hidden cameras, the crew (including Kit's "stand-in,"a
lame-looking but sweeter version of Kit and also played
by Murphy) follows Kit around his haunts in Los Angeles
while actors approach him with various bits of dialogue.
Bowfinger's plan just gets better when it is revealed that
Kit is a man so full of paranoid delusions and terrified
of aliens that he is being guided by a spiritual treatment
center called MindHead. The more the crew follows him around,
the more terrified he gets, heightening the action and suspense
of the film Bowfinger is making--and the humor of the film
we are watching.
Bowfinger is oddly funny, because as you are watching
it, the picture constantly feels like a "bad" movie--like
it really should be just another stupid Hollywood comedy.
It looks bad, and director Frank Oz maintains a cheesy,
low-rent quality in the proceedings. But as scripted by
Steve Martin, Bowfinger manages to be both a bitingly
funny satire of Hollywood and a rapid-fire series of inane
gags, which is why it's so successfully funny. Like Ed Wood
directing a scene ("Action! Cut! Print!"), the movie never
dwells on a bit. It allows jokes and scenes to fly by. But
while some of the audience might not catch them, Hollywood
will. Bowfinger lampoons everyone: filmmakers, big
studio heads, narcissistic actors, "Hollywood" lesbians
(hmmm... Martin's last girlfriend was Anne Heche), the Academy
Awards ("Find me a script with a retarded slave," Bowfinger
says, "then I'll win the Oscar") and, most boldly, the Church
of Scientology, which will not be amused by the bullying
and brainwashing portrayal they receive in the form of MindHead.
Martin is hilarious and understated, as are supporting
players, especially Graham as a slut from Ohio (hmmm...
Anne Heche is from Ohio) and Baranski as the sensitive over-actress.
But it is Eddie Murphy who makes this film absolutely explode.
Whether playing the paranoid star or the shy, geeky lookalike,
every scene he graces is uproarious, displaying the great
comedic talent and range we fell in love with when he was
on Saturday Night Live.
The film is not brilliant throughout, but though there
are moments that thud, they go by quickly enough and usually
launch into another hilarious, laugh-out-loud segment. And
although Bowfinger is a movie with a smarter purpose,
it never becomes self-important, precious or too reflective.
It's like Robert Altman's The Player, only in a cheap
suit and with a wet handshake. In the spirit of its own
star, the film reflects perfectly what Kit yells to a producer
eager to make a more serious film with him: "We're trying
to make a movie here, not a film!" Exactly.
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Willamette Week | originally
published August 11,
1999
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