Quick Movie Review: Bowfinger

5/10

So average I don't really want to waste much time on, it this is actually in all probability the best comedy Steve Martin or Eddie Murphy has been in for years, telling the story of a supposedly lovable charlatan, a nobody film maker (who, as a poster in the background describes, made "The Yugo Story".

He has one last chance to hit it big, and decides to cast as his leading man the biggest star in Hollywood in the form of Kit Ramsey - Eddie Murphy being a really irritating Tom Cruise alike who is blatantly insane, hearing voices and spending time at the scientology stand-in "MindHead".

That's about as funny as it gets. Malcom MacDowell's in it, with the kind of wandering accent he is great at, Heather Graham flounces about as a small town girl just arrived in Hollywood who is a bit more worldly wise than you'd think.

The problem I have with this film is that as a critique of Hollywood it just has no guts. Where Sunset Boulevard smacked the silver screen dead centre, Bowfinger pulls its punches. All the characters are resolved at the end and even Robert Downey Jr.'s high level Hollywood agent is nothing more than a jerk in a suit offering little more than clumsy "agents are scum" clichés.

I laughed a couple of times, at the way a character is forced to run across a busy motorway for a shot and at the dog walking in high heels but those show this films genuine level - it is immature, dumb and toothless.

At best its a mildly amusing timewaster, at its worst its just a waste of time.

Meh.

A