Hollywoodland Review
“Great acting supports a shoddy script. Doesn’t soar but doesn’t crash and burn.”
The mystery behind George Reeves death is still an unclosed case in Hollywood today. The case is still pretty much open as questions regarding the actual investigation and testimonies have been called into play. It seems like real-life mystery is actually pretty good. Wouldn’t this be perfect for a detective story? I would think so as well. Except in Hollywoodland the film-maker wasn’t sure whether it was a detective story or biography he was making.
Let me say this to start: Affleck rocked the shit in this one. I was very impressed by the way he created a character out of an actualy person. A memorable preformance, not to be eclipsed by Adrien Brody, who’s stellar as the gumshoe and hero of the story apart from Reeves. Other great preformances are turned in by Bob Hoskins, Diane Lane and Robin Tunney. The film totally captures Hollywood during the “star-system” era and totally gives off that 1940′s/50′s film-noir, Chinatown sort of vibe. The visual effects themselves were also very creative. It looked polished and was preformed quite effectively, and while the film provided a great underlying situation, the problem was in the actual organization.
This movie tried to do too much in too little. The movie runs a bit long as it really doesn’t have an action-beat basis. It’s confusing as to what to expect however, as your introduced to it almost as a biographical reflection, but then thrown into the detective story investigation. There can be a happy medium between the two, but the film-makers just didn’t find it, leaving to many dull moments that didn’t seem to bring me into any suspenseful places. If you’re going to use real material as the basis to your detective story, make it suspenseful. Don’t change the facts, but create situations using the already shown story. They attempted this, but in fact failed. They are quickly rebounded by strong preformances and a polished look. Hollywoodland , as a movie, is in many ways like Reeves life: Handsome, Interesting but never quite knowing which way to be taken. This movie gets 7 out of 10 Bones for a lack of clarity in vision backed by superb preformances.
RATING: 