"Bowfinger" is the first comedy to team up
Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, two comedians
with enormously successful Hollywood careers
who got their big break on "Saturday Night Live"
a generation ago. Martin is in familiar
territory with his character, a desperate
movie producer whose bad films have budgets
less than "The Blair Witch Project". Murphy
has two vastly different roles, as a wildly
paranoid man in thrall to a Scientology-styled
cult, and a nerdy, goofy man whose apparent
goal in life is to run errands.
Martin has played failed dreamers before ("Pennies
from Heaven") and really has only one funny scene,
which has him frantically switching the contents
of wine bottles before the arrival of a hot date.
He gives his Bowfinger character a winning combination
of mock smarminess and inventive, dubious machinations,
but mostly takes a back seat to the supporting
cast. This includes Daisy (Heather Graham),
a seemingly innocent aspiring actress who is
willing to sleep with anyone to advance her
career, Carol (Chistine Baranski), an affected,
aging theater actress, and Afrim (Adam Alexi-Malle),
an accountant from India whose hack screenplay
is enthusiastically embraced by Martin.
Bowfinger is broke, and has latched onto the screenplay
as his last chance at Hollywood glory. He encounters
smug studio executive Renfro (Robert Downey Jr.) who as
a joke tells Bowfinger that he will produce the film
if Bowfinger can land action star Kit Ramsey (Murphy)
for the leading role. Kit wants no part of the project,
so Bowfinger has a film crew (composed of impoverished
Mexican immigrants) stalk him, putting his paranoid
reactions into the movie. Bowfinger hires naive gopher
Jiff (also Murphy) as Kit's body double. Can Bowfinger
pull off his con, completing and selling the film?
There are admittedly many funny scenes, especially
when a panic-stricken Jiff runs across a busy freeway,
and the ending parody of an Asian karate flick.
But the jokes can get old as well, such as Daisy's
boyfriend-du-jour, Kit's black paranoia, Carol's
airhead pretentiousness, and MindThink guru Terence
Stamp's deadpan platitudes. If you're looking for
laughs, you'll find them in "Bowfinger". But perhaps
you'll feel guilty afterwards. (56/100)
Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin), a nearly bankrupt aspiring movie producer-director is about to take one last shot at fame and fortune to hit the big t...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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