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What Just Happened? (2008)

Average rating

(46%)

Starring:	John Turturro \| Robert De Niro \| Sean Penn \| Stanley Tucci \| Kristen Stewart
Director:	Barry Levinson
Studio:	20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Run time:	107 mins
Collections:	100 Most Wanted
Genres:	Comedy \| Drama
Languages:	English
Released:	April 27, 2009

"What Just Happened" is about two nail-biting, back-stabbing, roller-coaster weeks in the world of a middle-aged Hollywood producer--as he tries to juggle an actual life with an outrageous series of crises in his day job. This is the tale of a man besieged by people who want him all to be sorts of things--a money maker, an ego buster, a bad news breaker, an artistic champion, a loyal husband, an all-knowing father, not to mention sexy, youthful and tuned-in--everything except for the one thing he and all the preposterously behaved people he's surrounded by really are: bumbling human beings just trying to survive by any means necessary. Ben is already in over his head trying to balance the tug-of-war of having two ex-wives and two different families with his latest business venture--the boldly "visionary" movie "Fiercely," starring Sean Penn--when everything that can go wrong goes completely screwy. Somehow amidst all the madness, treachery, deceit, runaway egos, rampant commercialism, personal politics and atrocious behavior of America's dream-making machinery, Ben has to find a way not just to make it to Cannes with a finished film, but to cope...

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Rating of 3 stars out of 5
Time Out

Barry Levinson is not a director known for his down-with-the-kids credentials, and as such has fashioned an...

Highest rated reviews

33 out of 33 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 2.0 stars
What just happened indeed

Eyesrsore from , 22nd September, 2008

I went along to see What Just Happened, which was probably the reaction of most of the audience. I've thought about it quite a bit and still don't really know what to make of it. I'm not sure at all that the makers knew what kind of film they were making. I thought the tone was all over the place, that the pacing was wildly erratic - in fact I think there's two different films in there trying to get out. I realise what they were trying to do, to make a film that shows someone with an incredibly busy life, full of stresses, trying to cope but for me it didn't work. For example, one of the first things he did was pick his two young kids, from his first wife, and take them to school. We never saw them or his first wife again. There wasn't even a reference to them in the remainder of the film. I loved some of the scenes where he was trying to reconnect with his second wife. No spoilers, but there is a film in this alone. It just got cluttered up with ..... the clutter of the film. What was the reason for the manic scenes with Bruce Willis? He was a caricature of himself, as was the Director. The film could have done without them, it would then probably have been regarded as an 'intelligent satire ' on the film industry, instead it seems to be a film that lost it's way and ended up as drama that turned out to be a comedy or a comedy that turned out to be a drama but really is neither.

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7 out of 8 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 2.0 stars
What DID happen?

gepete80 from , 23rd February, 2009

De Niro reteams with Wag The Dog director Barry Levinson to take a look at the pitfalls of making a modern motion picture in today’s Hollywood. It’s a fairly standard affair as De Niros fading producer attempts to juggle his work and life commitments. Its not as satirical as their previous work, but does have its fair share of comedy, mostly around Ben’s handling of a neurotic director (Michael Wincott on a blinder) and also his molly coddling of an angry trumped up A-List star who refuses to shave off his beard (Bruce Willis as himself, although surely having a dig at Alec Baldwin). It doesn’t really say a lot (Its hard to make a movie, but someones gotta do it), and also inexplicably wastes a talent like Stanley Tucci who has the potential to make your movie 10 times better. De Niro is front and centre though so its weird that there hardly seems to be any kind of performance from him. Ben just seems to wade through the trials and tribulations as if he’s just riding a wave which certainly doesn’t seem to fit considering he’s trying to stay in the higher echelons of Hollywoods influential elite. This also withdraws any kind of tension from the movie so even when things move from bad to worse you are still left as a non-plussed spectator. There’s a nice turn from John Turturro as a wimpy agent but in all its not enough to really make this movie stand-up and be noticed, and I can only surmise that the idea for the film was probably a lot better on paper to those that where in the know.

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What Just Happened? (2008)

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