“The Player” (1992)
The premise now feels “well duh” obvious: Robert Altman, master of the professional microcosm ensemble drama turns his sharp eye onto the industry in which he’d worked for decades. But “The Player” challenged even those high expectations, turning out to be a lacerating satire as well as a unusually tightly plotted noir (from screenwriter Michael Tolkin). Opening with a bravura “Touch Of Evil”-evoking tracking shot, a film which, Altman being Altman, is self-consciously mentioned during the sequence, it follows slick exec Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins, in the kind of bland-exterior/dark-interior turn he does so well), who’s afraid for his job, being stalked by a mysterious figure and ends up murdering a screenwriter. Packed with little acid cameos and sharply drawn pen-pictures of the vanities, hubris and pettinesses of life within the studio machine, part of the fun of “The Player” is that though it feels authentic, it never becomes solely inside-baseball. But as many ironies as it contains, there can be none greater than, in biting the hand that fed him, Altman actually got back into Hollywood’s good graces. “The Player” was a hit and as its own moral tells us, that’s really all the industry cares about. [A]
“Short Cuts” (1993)
A characteristically ragged but vibrant and life-filled ensemble work, “Short Cuts” is similar in form to Altman’s classics, but is imbued with a weight and a crippling sadness that even those earlier films only hinted at. Whereas his prior work is often distinguished by an almost bratty, punk rock energy and raw filmmaking verve, “Short Cuts” feels like the work of a man who has lived, loved and lost quite a lot, bespeaking hard-won bittersweet wisdom also found in the series of short stories by Raymond Carver, on which this film is based. “Short Cuts” is colored by a haunting sense of loss, of chances never taken and secrets left unspoken, and the tapestry of human oddities on display is classic Altman: a motorcycle cop who can’t stay faithful; a helicopter pilot; a diner waitress; a spiteful baker; Tom Waits as a fall-down drunk who seems to have stumbled out of one of his own songs. From its hallucinatory opening to the film’s quite literally earth-shaking finish, “Short Cuts” is the culmination of a life spent studying the less-seen corners of of humanity and a career dedicated to demonstrating how the totality of all life experience can sometimes be contained in a single gesture or in the briefest of exchanges. [A]
“Pret a Porter” (1994)
Altman’s signature style has spawned many knock-offs, but he delivered one of the worst, most parodic versions of the industry-satire ensemble drama with this campy, tin-eared fashion world trifle. Coming hot on the heels of two of his bonafide late-period masterpieces in “The Player” and “Short Cuts” and featuring many of the actors from those films (Tim Robbins, Lyle Lovett and Lili Taylor to name just three), “Pret A Porter,” set during Paris Fashion week and studded with cameos from real-life designers and models, is a clunking dud, offering zero insight into the industry it lamely swipes at, and in which the height of humor is a recurring gag about dogshit. Featuring a jawdroppingly wasted cast of international stars such as Sophia Loren, Anouk Aimee and Marcello Mastroianni (inexplicably playing furtive and dowdy), it’s a mess of unconnected plot strands in which characters you don’t care for scheme against characters you care for even less (the Stephen Rea/celebrity photographer subplot is particularly rancid). A flop at the time and one Altman title highly unlikely to be rehabilitated anytime soon, perhaps the most amusing thing about “Pret a Porter” is that a film about this industry never got to be in fashion. [D+]
“Kansas City” (1996)
At his best, you’d have said that Altman would be able to make a blend of 1930s gangster film plus screwball comedy, plus live jazz interludes, plus thin social commentary about fixing elections, look as effortless as falling off a log. But in “Kansas City,” although it’s precisely in his wheelhouse and features yet another of his immense ensembles, the seams show. There are pleasures aplenty, particularly in the main strand which concerns Jennifer Jason Leigh‘s Jean Harlow-aping Bonnie-Parker-wannabe who kidnaps Miranda Richardson’s drugged-up politician’s wife in an effort to get her ne’er do well husband Johnny (Dermot Mulroney) out of the hot water he’s in with some local gangsters, led by a fab Harry Belafonte. When we’re with the two women, spikily bonding and thawing toward each other, with Leigh’s Blondie emerging as a surprisingly moving character, all tough-cookie exterior and dim-witted romantic inside, the film is rambunctiously enjoyable. But in all other departments, it falls flat, and the momentum is not helped by the long impromptu jazz sessions that punctuate the action, which may feature some fine musicianship but have the effect of making you lose your place in a story both overstuffed and undercooked. [B-]
“The Gingerbread Man” (1998)
Possibly the wildest outlier in Altman’s filmography because it’s the most anonymous, this is a competent legal thriller (from an original script by novelist John Grisham, whose inexperience as a screenwriter shows in the rather inert talkiness of most of the scenes) that’s sadly light on actual thrills. Starring Kenneth Branagh (fielding a flawless Southern accent, to be fair) Embeth Davidtz, Robert Duvall, Robert Downey Jr., Daryl Hannah, Tom Berenger and Famke Janssen, the film doesn’t want for stars —especially in the firmament of the late-’90s mid-budget thriller— and all of them sell the material as best they can. But no amount of classy photography (from “Farewell My Concubine” DP Gu Changwei) and solid performing can disguise the fact that this is a deeply pedestrian story. Featuring a twist that won’t surprise anyone who’s ever seen a movie before and stakes that, despite a couple of murders and the kidnapping of some kids, remain bizarrely low, the film was a big flop. Whether that was Altman’s fault or Polygram‘s for killing it, as Altman would later claim (he’d fallen out with the studio over test screenings) is hard to tell and, given the lackluster nature of what’s onscreen, hard to care too much about either. [B-]
