Primary navigation
Bowfinger
USA 1999
Reviewed by Charles Taylor
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Would-be film-maker Bobby Bowfinger is forever scrounging on the fringes of the Hollywood system. When his accountant writes Chubby Rain, an alien-invasion script, Bowfinger shows it to studio executive Jerry Renfro who becomes interested in the project - but only if Bowfinger can guarantee the involvement of action-movie superstar Kit Ramsey.
Bowfinger contrives to make Kit the unknowing star of Chubby Rain by shooting him surreptitiously as his actors approach him and say their lines. Kit, who has sought the help of a cult to cure his paranoid delusions about extraterrestrials, falls prey to those delusions once again as he is confronted by strangers spouting gibberish about aliens. Needing some way for Kit to participate in dialogue scenes, Bowfinger stumbles upon the movie buff Jeff who bears a striking resemblance to Kit, and who turns out to be his brother. Filming proceeds, ultimately with Kit's knowing involvement, and Chubby Rain becomes a hit.
Review
For satire to work it has to focus on its target with laser-guided precision, or take pot-shots so wild that sheer audacity keeps it bowling along. But Bowfinger's director Frank Oz has never been known for his finesse, and Steve Martin, who wrote the screenplay and also plays the title role, hasn't decided whether this take on the movie business is satire, farce or twisted wish-fulfilment fantasy. There was an element of wish fulfilment in Martin's screenplays for both Roxanne (1987) and L.A. Story (1991). The latter was savvy to the plastic unreality of Los Angeles but what came through most strongly was Martin's pixilated affection for the city. The more fanciful elements, such as the digital freeway sign that flashed private messages, came to seem like natural phenomena in a town where the inhabitants have remade reality itself.
In Bowfinger that affection has been replaced by contempt. Oz trains the camera on the decaying brown walls of Bowfinger's Spanish-style bungalow and sees none of the seedy vitality found, say, in The Late Show (1977), Robert Benton's noir-ish take on movieland's shabby fringes. Bowfinger looks at its namesake with the same disdain with which studio honchos regard him when he tries to crash a power lunch. Neither Oz's shoddy staging nor the undeveloped tone of Martin's script is as bad as the film's self-congratulatory cynicism. The particular hypocrisy of Bowfinger is that the movie is so clearly a product of the big-budget mainstream it invites the audience to feel superior to. (It has been sold in the US as the meeting of two big comic stars with an ad campaign that ignores Eddie Murphy's role as Kit.)
The treatment of Murphy and Heather Graham is particularly problematic. Murphy brings some satirical juice to the rantings of a pampered black star about the racism that pervades the industry. But the laughs these lines might get stick in your throat when you see he has been shot in sputtering, eye-rolling close-ups, uncomfortable traces of Hollywood's racist stereotyping of black performers. Graham's role as an opportunist whose talent is for sleeping her way to the top and who winds up a lesbian is simply vile, Martin's caddish and transparent jibe at his ex Anne Heche. Given the quality of Martin's recent work (Father of the Bride, Sgt. Bilko) and the quality of Heche's in Donnie Brasco and Psycho, you'd hardly think he's in a position to comment on her talent.
Often it's impossible to tell how Bowfinger wants us to react. It's a film that wants us to laugh knowingly at the deal-making that takes place over a power lunch, but also to accept that a starry-eyed Midwestern girl getting off a Greyhound and asking, "Where do I go to become an actress?" can make it. It wants us, in the age of The Matrix, to believe that Bobby Bowfinger's Ed Wood-style epic would be a smash. The only real accuracy and sting come in Robert Downey Jr's brilliant cameo as the essence of all the young execs who take pleasure in being so mindless. Satire that doesn't draw blood risks stroking the targets it claims to skewer, affirming the status quo it means to upset. Bowfinger should please the big stars and studio execs who can laugh at their on-screen representations and thus display their own hipness, and it should please audiences who can pretend that swallowing the crap Hollywood shovels out is fine as long as you're hip enough to know it's crap. Bowfinger bears the same relation to satire as reports of the weekend grosses do to journalism.
Credits
- Producer
- Brian Grazer
- Screenplay
- Steve Martin
- Director of Photography
- Ueli Steiger
- Editor
- Richard Pearson
- Production Designer
- Jackson DeGovia
- Music
- David Newman
- ©Universal Studios
- Production Companies
- Universal and Imagine Entertainment present a Brian Grazer production
- Executive Producers
- Karen Kehela
- Bernie Williams
- Associate Producer
- Kathleen Courtney
- Production Co-ordinator
- Deborah Bird
- Unit Production Manager
- Bernie Williams
- Key Location Manager
- Molly Allen
- Location Manager
- Lisa Blok-Linson
- Post-production Supervisor
- Leslie J. Converse
- Assistant Directors
- Michele Panelli-Venetis
- Matt Rebenkoff
- Basil Bryant Grillo
- Evan L. Gilner
- Script Supervisor
- Luca Kouimelis
- Casting
- Margery Simkin
- Associate:
- Carmen Cuba
- Loop Group:
- Sondra James
- Camera Operators
- Billy O'Drobinak
- Guy Norman Bee
- Additional:
- Nathaniel Goodman
- Steadicam Operator
- Guy Norman Bee
- Visual effects
- Illusion Arts
- Syd Dutton
- Bill Taylor
- Digital Supervisor:
- Richard Patterson
- Head Compositor:
- David S. Williams Jr
- Senior Matte Artist:
- Mike Wassel
- Matte Artists:
- Kelvin McIlwain
- Kenneth Nakada
- Illusion Arts Producer:
- Catherine Sudolcan
- Animator:
- Fumi Mashimo
- Camera Operator:
- Adam Kowalski
- Editorial:
- Kelly G. Crawford
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Philip Cory
- Foreman:
- Richard Cory
- Model Maker
- Karl Martin
- Graphic Designer
- Susan Burig
- Art Director
- Tom Reta
- Set Designers
- Karl Martin
- Les Gobruegge
- Dawn Snyder
- Set Decorator
- K.C. Fox
- Storyboard Artist
- Marc Baird
- Costume Designer
- Joseph G. Aulisi
- Costume Supervisor
- Kendall Errair
- Make-up
- Key:
- Steve Artmont
- Artist:
- Rick Sharp
- Key Hair Stylists
- Gloria Albarran Ponce
- Special Effects Make-up
- Matthew W. Mungle
- Prosthetic Dental Technician
- Gary Archer
- Main/End Titles Design
- Nina Saxon
- Opticals/Chubby Rain Titles
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Music Performed by Electric Bass:
- Neal Stubenhaus
- Drums:
- Steve Schaeffer
- Guitars:
- Dean Parks
- George Doering
- Keyboards:
- Mike Lang
- Jim Cox
- Sax:
- Dan Higgins
- Latin Percussion:
- Lenny Castro
- Orchestrations
- Alexander Janko
- Music Supervisor
- Pilar McCurry
- Music Co-ordinator
- Melodee Sutton
- Music Editor
- J.J. George
- Scoring Mixer
- John Kurlander
- Programmer
- Marty Frasu
- Score Consultant
- Krystyna Newman
- Soundtrack
- "There Is Always One More Time" by Kenneth W. Hirsch, Doc Pomus, performed by Johnny Adams; "You're a Wonderful One" by Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, Edward Holland Jr, performed by Marvin Gaye; "After Hours", "Fourth Floor Ladies Shoes" by/performed by Daniel May; "The Eau Zone" by/performed by Jimmy Kaleth; "Legend of a Cowgirl" by Imani Coppola, Michael Mangini, Donovan Leitch, performed by Imani Coppola; "El burro polillos" performed by Mariachi Reyes del Aserradero; "Wake Up" by/performed by Geoff Levin, Chris Many; "Maximum Beat" by/performed by Victor 'X-Man' Taylor; "Super Smooth" by/performed by E. Callins, Chieli Minucci; "Setembro (Brazilian Wedding Song)" by Ivan Lins, Zitor Martins, performed by Quincy Jones; "And I Love You So" by Don McLean, performed by Perry Como; "Mambo UK" by Jesús Alemañy, performed by !Cubanismo!; "Super Bad, Super Slick" by/performed by James Brown; "Fifth of Beethoven" by/performed by Walter Murphy; "When You Go Deep" by/performed by Michael McGregor; "Pick Up the Pieces" by Roger Ball, Alan Gorrie, Robbie McIntosh, Malcolm Duncan, Hamish Stuart, Owen McIntyre, performed by Average White Band; "Secret Agent Man" by Steve Barri, P.F. Sloan, performed by Johnny Rivers; "Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas, performed by Bus Stop featuring Carl Douglas
- Sound Mixer
- Martin Raymond Bolger
- Re-recording Mixers
- Lee Dichter
- Ron Bochar
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Ron Bochar
- Dialogue Editor
- Magdaline Volaitis
- Sound Effects Editor
- Lewis Goldstein
- ADR
- Engineers:
- David Boulton
- Alan Holly
- Supervising Editor:
- Marissa Littlefield
- Editor:
- Juno Ellis
- Foley
- Artists:
- Marko Costanzo
- Jay Peck
- Engineer:
- Matt Haasch
- Supervising Editor:
- Ben Cheah
- Editors:
- Kam Chan
- Tim O'Shea
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Bud Davis
- Animal Suppliers
- Performing Animal Troupe
- Head Animal Trainer
- Gregg Pittman
- Animal Trainer
- Charity M. Parsons
- Helicopter Pilots
- Peter J. McKernan Sr
- Peter J. McKernan Jr
- Alan Purwin
- Cast
- Steve Martin
- Bobby Bowfinger
- Eddie Murphy
- Kit Ramsey/Jeff Ramsey
- Heather Graham
- Daisy
- Christine Baranski
- Carol
- Jamie Kennedy
- Dave
- Barry Newman
- Kit's agent
- Adam Alexi-Malle
- Afrim
- Kohl Sudduth
- Slater
- Terence Stamp
- Terry Stricter
- Robert Downey Jr
- Jerry Renfro
- Alejandro Patino
- Sanchez
- Alfred De Contreras
- Martinez
- Ramiro Fabian
- Hector
- Johnny Sanchez
- Luis
- Claude Brooks
- Freddy
- Kevin Scannell
- LA cop
- John Prosky
- MindHead executive
- Michael Dempsey
- camera security guard
- Walter Powell
- Federal Express man
- Phill Lewis
- actor at audition
- Marisol Nichols
- young actress at audition
- Nathan Anderson
- clothing sales clerk
- Brogan Roche
- Renfro's executive
- John Cho
- nightclub cleaner
- Lloyd Berman
- camera store clerk
- Zaid Farid
- Kit's limo driver
- Aaron Brumfield
- Kevin Grevioux
- Kit's bodyguards
- Kimble Jemison
- Kit's assistant
- Alex Craig Mann
- studio executive
- Laura Grady
- E Channel interviewer
- Reamy Hall
- Farrah
- Michelle Boehle
- Kimberly Baum
- Megan Denton
- Janet Jaeger
- Hope Wood
- Addie Yungmee
- Andrea Toste
- Laker girls
- Mindy
- Betsy, Bowfinger's dog
- Certificate
- 12
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 8,745 feet
- 97 minutes 10 seconds
- SDDS/Dolby digital/Digital DTS sound
- Colour by
- DeLuxe