What Just Happened (2008)

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The joke with What Just Happened is that its a mainstream film with big stars and they want to pass it off as an independent film. This is a satirical look at the chaos of Hollywood and film making based on the memoirs of film producer Art Linson and directed by Barry Levinson.Robert De Niro is the frazzled producer balancing his precarious personal and professional lives. He has to deal with a prima donna Bruce Willis who refuses to shave off his beard and a highly strung British director who wants an uncompromising ending to a Sean Penn film where a dog meets a nasty fate much to the chagrin of the film studio boss.Its fun poke at Hollywood filled with star turns who are in on the joke and seem to enjoy themselves especially Willis and Penn. I liked Catherine Keener as he studio head who has given an ultimatum to De Niro to fix the film ending and Michael Wincott as the sly director.However we have seen this before and also its been more funnier, bitter and cynical in films such as The Player, The Big Knife, The Big Picture or Sunset Boulevard. Levinson and De Niro wielded a sharper knife when they made Wag the Dog but their effort is more hollow here.

It was a movie I had to see twice to fully appreciate it Its really hilarious The nonsense involved in Hollywood movies, the double talk, the hard core money brokers, keener great as always. The English director was like Johnny rotten on heat. Lots of nice cameos, Tururro funny, Penn solid. in the end though its yet again the genius of Deniro that holds it all together. The bit when the girl seduces him in the bathroom, thats a good school lol he holds such a straight face too...He has about 1001 facial expressions on his world weary road map of a face, he was uptight overworked, his whole skit with the shrink and his wife had me in stitches too....Wheres my couch, we talk about the past but what about the now, the now now? no I didn't cheat, well erm there was this time and that time, but no, but well there was a time in that party ...in the bathroom.....Has any man in movie history carried as many movies on his back as Deniro?

Hollywood is a culture of extreme narcissism. A film exploring the Hollywood culture of extreme narcissism is going to produce a movie about characters who are extremely narcissistic. Now, hopefully this was done deliberately, in which case "What Just Happened" is a work of genius and honesty. If the filmmakers are not aware that most of America do not like characters like the ones in this movie, then it is just another demonstration of Hollywood's culture of narcissism.I was trying to figure out why I felt so defensive watching this movie and it was more than just the self-absorbed characters. "What Just Happened" is a movie about Hollywood insiders made for the enjoyment of Hollywood insiders. No effort at all was made to let outsiders in on the joke. At a dinner party this would be rather rude! One could get much of the humor, but only if they scoured the industry media such as "Variety" and "The Hollywood Reporter ". Other than that, the average viewer is completely out of the loop! I could not bring myself to like one single character in this movie. The worst part is that movies like this, at the least, usually show Los Angeles as one of the characters and the director failed at that because the camera was too busy focusing on all these annoying self-absorbed characters. Unless you're a Hollywood insider or are ambitious to make it into Hollywood film industry circles and want to know how Hollywood ticks, avoid this movie. It is just not entertaining.

I had good expectations before watching What Just Happened because Robert De Niro had previously worked with director Barry Levinson in Wag the Dog, one of my favorite political comedies, and I was enthusiastic to see them working together again in a satire of the film industry. Unfortunately, What Just Happened is too bland and artificial to consider it as a genuine denounce against Hollywood, and I think that it is nothing more than an insipid comedy whose good intentions are not enough for justifying its lack of energy or its boring screenplay.It is easy to laugh at Hollywood, because from the outside, it seems like an absurd industry which punishes the originality at the same time it promotes the mediocrity and the conformism. However, I would have thought that screenwriter Art Linson (who also wrote the book this movie is based on) would have had more things to say about Hollywood, since he has been working for various decades as a powerful producer with various mainstream films (such as, for example, Fight Club, Heat and The Untouchables) in his filmography. And I think that is the main problem from What Just Happened: it does not even remotely go as far as it should, and it simply recycles the same jokes and situations we have seen in much better satires of the film industry, from the movie The Player to TV series like Entourage and Extras.Among the few positive things I can say about this movie, I have to mention the solid performances, from Stanley Tucci as a capricious screenwriter to Michael Wincott as a director/artist obsessed with his vision, without forgetting about Catherine Keener as an inflexible director from a studio and John Turturro as a traitor agent who is only worried in charging his next commission. But the best performance of What Just Happened comes from De Niro, who can credibly express the tumult of emotions his character must keep under control in order not to ruin his career or his personal life. However, despite the competent performances, I do not feel that What Just Happened deserves even a slight recommendation, because I found it to be a boring and unfunny satire which lacks of ambition.