Hollywoodland Review
by samseescinema (sammeriam AT comcast DOT net)September 11th, 2006
Hollywoodland
reviewed by Sam Osborn
Director: Allen Coulter
Screenplay: Paul Bernbaum
Cast: Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins
MPAA Classification: R (language, some violence and sexual content)
Hollywood notoriety is a theme for this fall's Academy hopefuls, with Hollywoodland and The Black Dahlia separated by only one week on the release slate. Each pulls its focus from a scintillating mystery that yanked on the headlines of its time: the death of a semi-star ridden with introspective misery. This first picture, Hollywoodland, saunters along well enough, but dangles on plot threads too thin for a film of such self-prescribed importance.
Its story is spun with what some would call a Rashomon style of telling. I think more would call this the "CSI" method of storytelling, but this is, after all, a film review and some sense of film elitism must be elicited. Anyway, put simply, the death of George Reeves (Ben Affleck) is shown multiple times with multiple changes and adjustments made with each repetition of the scene. Investigating Reeves' death is sleazy private investigator Mr. Simo (Adrien Brody), whose been forced out of his former detective agency to work out of a motel room for rich, neurotic husbands tracking their wives. He stumbles upon the Reeves yarn through an old friend and goes to Reeves' mother. She believes that her son's apparent suicide has more grit in its teeth than the tale of an out-of-work actor low on luck. She thinks George Reeves, the televised Superman of the fifties, was put to death by a hand not his own. This piques Simo's interest, seeing a chance for fame in solving a high-profile murder, and he goes to work with zeal.
Hollywood has been depicted many a time in a period setting. Blacklisting and McCarthyism, Polanski's tale of water distribution in Chinatown, Robert Towne's recent tale of a struggling screenwriter's love in Ask the Dust, and on the list goes; Los Angeles was a beautiful place for struggle and power to converge in conflict. Director Allen Coulter does well to emulate such depictions of L.A., borrowing smartly from the American film canon. His Hollywood is a world of diners filled with men in fedoras and crisp suits, and swanky dinner parties with fat, sweaty producers and their drunken mistresses. Coulter's work has until now been done in television projects, namely episodes of "The Sopranos." His experience with gangland cinema shines in the scenes in which the gold chains and silver pens of Hollywood powers rain down like the chrome pistols and neon sweat-suits of Tony Soprano's Jersey mob. His direction is assured and interested in bold, tonal colors that swing his picture's mood fast and hard.
But it's the story that can't keep up. Simo follows the breadcrumbs to different characters and their motives, forming new conclusions around each of their confessions as fast as the boys and girls in "Law and Order." Reeves' own story is woven into this mystery, depicting his tangled love affair with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane) and his typecast career limited to the Superman character. Each tale is intriguing, but only mildly so. Reeves' death is, in the end, simplistic in motive and Simo's investigation thin. These elements are made to be the driving force of Coulter's film, and are misplaced as so.
Mr. Simo and Mr. Reeves are put into a brilliant parallel throughout the picture, and their characters more dimensional than what the story wields. Each character searches for something that maybe isn't there and take tumbles and risky leaps trying to find it. By the end the two are connected and supremely interwoven, but Hollywoodland has mistaken this to be secondary to its requisite mystery. The fault doesn't make for a flop, however, and Hollywoodland works well enough to slide between the other woeful tales of Los Angeles. Just don't expect Chinatown.
-rating: 3.0 out of 4
-Samuel Osborn
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
