Bowfinger Review
by Scott Renshaw (renshaw AT inconnect DOT com)August 12th, 1999
BOWFINGER
(Universal)
Starring: Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham, Jamie Kennedy, Christine Baranski, Terrence Stamp.
Screenplay: Steve Martin.
Producer: Brian Grazer.
Director: Frank Oz.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (profanity, adult themes, adult humor) Running Time: 93 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Movie people love making movies about movie people -- they validate film-making as the most fascinating of all pursuits, even as they allow Tinseltown to tweak its own inflated image. It's a wonderful mystery of the film industry that so much self-absorption and self-loathing can co-exist without some sort of matter/anti-matter explosion. Too often, though, the tweak doesn't take. Steven Seagal playing himself in MY GIANT was unconvincing as a pompous, difficult star playing a pompous, difficult star; BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN was as brainless and misguided as the films it intended to satirize. For every THE PLAYER, there are half a dozen attempts at insider humor too self-congratulatory to tap into what's truly goofy about Hollywood.
Steve Martin is one of the guys who gets it, and in BOWFINGER he finds an unlikely partner in Eddie Murphy. Martin plays Bobby Bowfinger, a never-was producer convinced that he's finally found a project that will launch him into the big time. The science-fiction/action project needs only one thing to guarantee studio support: the participation of Kit Ramsey (Murphy), action star extraordinaire. Ramsey has no interest in the project, but Bowfinger has a creative solution. He plans to send his cast and crew wherever Ramsey happens to be, throwing him into the film without his knowledge. Little does Bowfinger know that the strange things happening around Kit are sending the already-edgy celebrity into a full-fledged paranoia.
Martin, who also wrote the script, has previously demonstrated his fondness for skewering Los Angeles (L.A. STORY) and classic cinema (DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID); he even played a soulless studio suit himself in GRAND CANYON. The key is that he knows how to do it with affection, finding the absurdity in film culture and conventions while still recognizing their magical appeal. In a sense, BOWFINGER is a broad, contemporary re-working of ED WOOD, the story of a guy so determined to make his mark that he'll go to bizarre lengths to do it. Martin the actor lets go of his recent flustered Everyman persona to find a guy willing to look ridiculous to be a player. Martin the writer, meanwhile, takes broad aim at every possible industry target -- producers with short attention spans, action films, the casting couch, Scientology (thinly disguised as an organization called Mindhead), even former girlfriend Anne Heche. While some of the barbs are caustic, they all come back to a group of people trying to make magic ... even if the magic is an alien adventure called "Chubby Rain."
The scattershot approach to Hollywood satire should have fallen flat, and on occasion it does feel somewhat forced. Director Frank Oz certainly deserves some credit for his deft touch, but the real anchor of BOWFINGER is Eddie Murphy. Unlike Seagal, Murphy appears genuinely willing to poke fun at his history as holy terror. His Kit Ramsey is a borderline psychotic, surrounded by yes-men who validate his demented conspiracy theories and a Mindhead guru (Terrence Stamp) who gets rich off of them. It's a wild, wired performance, complemented by his second role as Jiff, the geeky Kit Ramsey look-alike Bowfinger hires as a stand-in. Jiff not only lets Murphy subtly satirize his fondness for playing multiple roles; he provides a sympathetic face for an innocent's sense of wonder at the world of the movies. Murphy should always be this loose and entertaining.
BOWFINGER isn't a perfect comedy, at times pushing its thin premise farther than it can sustain. Heather Graham's secretly Machiavellian ingenue grows a bit tiresome, and the Mindhead gags often feel timid and blunted. When the set pieces work, however -- Jiff's terrified journey across a freeway, or an attempt to spook Kit in a parking garage, or gathering a "crew" at the Mexican border -- they're wonderfully funny stuff. It's also a movie about movies that doesn't get caught up in its own hipness. When Steve Martin wants you to laugh at something about Hollywood, you know it's out of authentic whimsy, not a movie star's hypocritical attempt to cozy up to the laypeople. As a result, BOWFINGER feels relaxed and honest, a satire with enough wisdom to recognize there's still something delightful about being a film-maker.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Hollywood chuckles: 7.
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