What Just Happened? (Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Keener, John Turturro) – Barry Levinson is one of the most renowned directors of our time (Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam, Bugsy, Wag The Dog, Disclosure, Avalon, The Natural, Bandits). While recent efforts, like the Robin Williams vehicle, Man of the Year, haven’t been as good, actors want to work in a Levinson picture. What Just Happened? is a Hollywood-on-Hollywood movie that brings producer/director/writer Art Linson’s book and screenplay to independent theaters. Linson is prolific, having produced such movies as Heat, Heist, Fight Club, Spartan, The Black Dahlia, Into the Wild, The Untouchables, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. So you would think that a movie-about-making-movies written by Linson and directed by Levinson would give us the inside scoop and poop about Tinsel Town. Well, it does and it doesn’t.
What Just Happened? focuses on a producer named Ben, played by the suddenly omnipresent Robert De Niro, who juggles a dozen balls in his professional and personal life. Ben is twice divorced, has kids by both marriages and tries to be a good father while never quite giving up on his marriage to wife #2, Kelly, played by Robin Wright Penn. His professional life is on the slide, having not produced a hit in a while. Right now, he’s in the final stages of a headed-for Sundance film noir, artistic, indie starring Sean Penn (who plays himself here) and directed by a drugged-out nutcase of a British artiste. Test audiences of the film seemed to love the movie right up to the finish (I won’t give away what happens). So the head of the studio, played by the always perfect Catherine Keener, demands the finish get fixed so that she loses less than the $20 million she is sure she’ll lose if it’s released as is. Ben thinks it’s awful, too. But his job is to both smooth things over with everyone and to appear positive. (Apparently that’s a producer’s job in Linson’s world.) So while Ben is trying to cajole his psychotic director into changing the film, he is also producing a big budget flick starring a temperamental Bruce Willis (also playing himself). Willis has grown a God-awful beard and looks more like Grizzly Adams than a hunk. The studio (apparently, all studios are evil) won’t make the movie without the beard shaved and Willis’ agent, played as a meek and spineless John Turturro, is too afraid to confront his client. (Apparently, all agents are worthless sycophants.)
The rest is for you either to enjoy just watching the stars – real and not – or to scratch your head wondering why all of these fine actors and this incredible director made this movie at all. The film doesn’t really take you anywhere or illuminate the movie business for you. But it does keep you guessing about the resolution of the two major plot lines – the premiere of the Sean Penn movie and whether the petulant Willis will shave his beard. You never really wonder how Ben’s personal life will resolve itself. If you can’t tell whether I liked or hated this movie, you’re not alone. I feel the same way.