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Hollywoodland 3.5 out of 5 stars Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson |
So he wasn’t faster than a speeding bullet after all.
“Hollywoodland” is the story of the tragic life and death of George Reeves (brilliantly portrayed by Ben Affleck), best known to millions of kids in the 50s as Superman. Was it suicide, as the police have concluded, or was he murdered, as all the clues suggest? It’s also the story of the dark journey taken by sleazy investigator Louis Simo (a pointless Adrien Brody), hired by Reeve’s mother to prove he was murdered. Along the path to the realization that he’s not the greatest investigator since Sherlock Holmes, Simo comes to understand that he needs to change -- he loses his girlfriend, has already lost his wife, and almost loses his son.
The film focuses on the Reeves’ affair with Toni Mannix (Diane Lane in a non-glamour puss role), the wife of MGM Vice President and self-appointed enforcer Eddie Mannix (a thuggish Bob Hoskins). Mannix encouraged Reeves affair with his wife because it allowed him to have affairs of his own. In one of the films most awkward moments, George and Toni go out to dinner with Eddie Mannix and his subservient Japanese mistress. As he tries to fish for an audition, Reeves realizes how much contempt studio heads like Mannix have for actors.
Mannix: “You under contract?”
Reeves: “Not anymore, I used to be with MGM,”
Mannix: “Tough business.”
Reeves becomes Toni’s kept man, and despite her gifts, including the expensive home he lives in, Reeves maintains his desire to be a leading man. Reeves first acting job was in “Gone With The Wind” arguably the greatest film of all time, and he’s been chasing stardom ever since. He reluctantly auditions for a role “Superman,” a Saturday afternoon children’s show, and is so unenthused about the job, he begins reading for the role of Jimmy Olsen at the audition instead of Clark Kent. He accepts the role because he needs the money and he’s convinced “No one in their right mind will ever watch this thing.” The show becomes a phenomenon and Reeves’ life and acting career become an ironic joke. He’s finally got the fame he desires, but he’s running around in red underwear, feeling like a fool. At a live performance as Superman, a drunken Reeves stops a pair of bank robbers, appearing to bend their guns with his bare hands. A young boy approaches Reeves, pointing an all too real gun at him.
Kenneth: “Can I shoot you?”
Reeves: “Why would you want to shoot me, Kenneth?”
Kenneth: “To see if the bullets bounce off.”
Reeves: “If you did that, the bullets might bounce off of me and hit someone else instead.”
Although this incident never occurred, the real Reeves was constantly poked, probed and kicked by children out to test his invincibility, which certainly served to send The Man of Steel into a state of depression.
Reeves tries out for a role in “From Here to Eternity” hoping to shed his TV image. At the screening, the audience mocks Reeves whenever he’s the on screen (“Great Caesar’s ghost!” “Faster than a speeding bullet,” etc…) Reeves laughs off the hecklers for Toni’s sake, but his disappointment is evident as he squirms in his seat. As a result of the audience’s reaction, Reeves is cut from the film, effectively ending his career.
Hopelessly typecast, Reeves forms his own production company after “Superman” is finally cancelled. Against Toni’s wishes, Reeves takes a two-week business trip to New York where he meets Leonore Lemmon (tough-as-a-gun-moll Robin Tunney). Lemmon is an aggressive, golddigging party girl who’s convinced Reeves has money. Reeves dumps Toni for Leonore, and Eddie Mannix, takes note of how depressed his wife has become. Reeves quickly becomes a caricature of himself, paunchy, hard-drinking and popping pain pills to numb the pain caused by a recent car wreck. Despondent over his failure as an actor, he supposedly shoots himself.
“Hollywoodland” offers three scenarios explaining Reeves’ death. No one theory of Reeves’ death is proven or disproven, ultimately leaving the audience to decide which scenario (as Superman himself would put it) stands for truth, justice and the American way. When Simo discovers two bullet holes underneath the rug near Reeves bed during his investigation, a clue not detected by the police, he asks a detective, “How does a suicide victim miss twice, put two holes in the floor, cover them up, and then try again?” Lemmon becomes his primary suspect, and Brody imagines how the two holes in the floor and the one in Reeves’ head came to be. Brody’s second suspect is Eddie Mannix, who may have sent one of his stooges to murder Reeves in retribution for breaking his wife’s heart. The third theory, that Superman killed himself, is as plausible Reeves winning an Oscar for lifetime achievement, until Reeves’ kindly manager (a sympathetic turn by Jeffrey DeMunn) gives Simo a home movie taken of Reeves and tells him to judge for himself whether Reeves was capable of taking his own life. What Simo sees – a paunchy, stumbling has-been trying and failing miserably to do calisthenics – makes Simo realize that any of the scenarios could be true, and he’d better wise up, or he’ll end up a pathetic wreck like Reeves.
Affleck’s portrayal of Reeves is more powerful than a locomotive. He sounds like Reeves, affects his leading man grin and effectively projects the personality of a man who wants to be a star but knows he never will be. His performance should revive Affleck’s career, which was headed down the same typecast pretty boy terrain as Reeves. Simo’s parallel storyline is far less cohesive and fails to entertain. Because Adrien Brody’s character is a fictional amalgam of several people, his storyline seems tacked on and every scene he’s in is like kryptonite. Either Brody’s character is as thin as Superman’s leotard or he’s in an acting slump. (Want proof? Check out Brody’s rote performance as a “challenged” townie in “The Village.”) Although Simo comes to realize what a sleazebag he’s been, you don’t empathize with him the way you do with Reeves, even after Simo is told to “Let it go” by Mannix’s men and get brained for his troubles. Simo’s also not the least bit likeable. He flimflams an obviously disturbed client into putting him on perpetual retainer, yet ignores the man’s claims that his wife is cheating on him, setting in motion a disastrous outcome. When Brody’s son nearly burns down his ex-wife’s home by setting his Superman costume on fire, he doesn’t have the patience to deal with the boy’s silence and frightens him. He ups the ante, traumatizing his son by showing up drunk at his school. Brody isn’t even good at his job anymore – it’s his girlfriend who uncovers a potential bombshell when she finds out that Reeves was in a car crash because someone drained his car’s brake fluid.
Diane Lane breathes life into a larger than life character that in a lesser actresses’ hands would have come off a caricature of a rich woman refusing to grow old gracefully. (Nora Desmond anyone?). Bob Hoskins makes the most of his screen time, portraying Eddie Mannix as an uneducated, bullish thug intent on perpetuating the studio caste system. Robin Tunney’s money-grubbing Leonore is also noteworthy. She’s tough and bitchy, a me-first kind of girl. Simo realizes first-hand that she’s a first class manipulator when he breaks into Reeves’ house and sees her ransacking the crime scene, taking anything of value she can lay her hands on. Simo threatens to turn her in, but she quickly reminds him he’s not a cop and he could be charged with breaking and entering, and she’d be willing to get the judge to throw in an a more serious charge by saying Simo raped her. “I’m gonna be on you,” Brody warns. “Not unless you drug me first,” she replies.
Look, Up in The Sky… It’s Bird, It’s A Plane ...It’s…
The Extras
“Hollywoodland”‘s extras are as enjoyable as the movie itself. “Old Hollywood” shows how the production crew perfected the movie’s late 50s look. “Hollywood Then and Now” offers a jaundiced look at what the contract system in Hollywood was like during Reeves’ career. Jack Larson, who portrayed reporter Jimmy Olson on the “Superman” TV show and was a friend of Reeves, laughingly remembers everyone in Hollywood talking as if they were reared in England, and describes New Jersey-bred Toni Mannix as “A broad with a lot of class, or as she would say, ‘closs’.”
Actor/ historian Jim Beaver (Whitney Ellsworth on “Deadwood”), Hoskins, Larson and Lane are interviewed for “Behind the Headlines,” a look at the fictional and factual aspects of the movie. It’s crammed with interesting anecdotes, including the observation that Affleck was so intent on giving an accurate portrayal of Reeves that he not only studied the “Superman” episodes and his movie career, he also listened to tapes of his voice on the set. Brody, on the other hand, avoided any link to the Superman legend or Reeves’ story, which may explain his disconnect from the movie.
By leaving Reeves’ murder a mystery, Director Allen Coulter and writer Paul Burnbaum have fashioned an enjoyable whodunit. (They may want to tackle another unsolved Hollywood mystery next: the murder of 30s starlet Thelma Todd.) If writer Burnbaum had trusted his instincts and focused the story on Reeves’ life alone, “Hollywoodland” would have been a much stronger picture. As it is, it’s worth watching for Affleck’s studied portrayal of Reeves.
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