“Indeed,” remarked the cinema patrons as they left Robert DeNiro’s latest film What Just Happened? “Was that a comedy or a drama?” said one. “I have no clue,” replied another. “Just keep walking,” urged a third.
Did a comedy happen? Or a drama? I was hoping that an absurd series of events would parody Hollywood like Get Shorty. Or maybe a disaffected protagonist grinding his way through a series of soulless setbacks, like directory Barry Levinson’s T.V. series Homicide and Oz. If not that, then two leading actors bantering back and forth and satirizing their field, like another Levinson-DeNiro collaboration Wag the Dog.
Instead, it seems as if nothing happened. Ninety minutes were used to set up two reasonably funny jokes. The worst crime a comedy can commit is to not be funny.
DeNiro’s Ben, a famous film producer, drives mindlessly through the lights and freeways of Los Angeles, a plane leaves without him, and his ex-wife re-upholsters his favourite chair. Ben takes ecstasy and is only slightly more confused and disoriented than when he is sober. Levinson bashes the audience over the head with symbolism like he was using a hammer.
An important plotline is whether Bruce Willis, a star in Ben’s next picture, will shave his lumberjack beard. In the end, he shaves half of it and the production crew applauds. Did he mean to yank their chains and shave the rest or was it a blunt metaphor that meaningless compromises are now accepted and congratulated? “You didn’t do anything worthwhile, but at least you put forth a token effort and are no longer a complete disgrace.”
I.M.D.B. gave this film 8.1 stars out of ten. At least the actors and crew tried. It was an evening of entertainment but nothing more. Entirely overrated, perhaps like the Hollywood lifestyle, the film manages to teach a brief lesson as it concludes: as Ben’s life collapses around him, he manages to find more self-satisfaction and peace of mind than he ever did during his successful years. *½