Critic wrangle: "What Just Happened?"

2008-10-17 21:00:01

"And Bruce Willis as himself" -- Barry Levinson's industry satire "What Just Happened?" wasn't the buzzy Sundance hit those who made it clearly had expected, despite a bright and shiny cast of biggish names like Robert De Niro, Robin Wright Penn, John Turturro, Stanley Tucci. Catherine Keener and the aforementioned Willis. In theaters today, it's generated mixed reviews -- I'd count myself amongst the many that seem impatient with continued tales of high-larious Hollywood woe. "What Just Happened? is a doodle, but its aura of dread seems earned," writes David Edelstein at New York, saluting De Niro's "killer timing" and the fact that "Barry Levinson directs snappily." Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly agrees that the film "rambles a bit, but it has dryly obscene, laugh-out-loud lines, and its portrait of Hollywood as a giant anxiety attack is fused by De Niro, who musters a desperate, nagging warmth beneath his grumbly...

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