The Player

Year of Release:  1992
Director:  Robert Altman
Screenplay:  Michael Tolkin, based on the novel The Player by Michael Tolkin
Starring:  Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Brion James, Cynthia Stevenson
Running Time: 124 minutes
Genre:  Black comedy, satire, thriller

Griffin Mill (Robbins) is an executive at a Hollywood studio.  His job is to listen to submissions from writers and decide whether or not they would make good films.  By his own estimation he says "yes" to 12 out of 50,000 submissions a year.  As you might expect, he has more than a few enemies among screenwriters.  Mill starts to receive threatening postcards from a writer whose pitch he rejected.  To make matters worse, his job is threatened by an ambitious new executive at the studio.

The Player marked something of a comeback for maverick Hollywood director Robert Altman who became known in the 1970s for such iconic films as MASH (1970), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) and Nashville (1975).  The Player features several Altman trademarks, most notably the large cast, complex, overlapping dialogue, and mobile camera work, particularly in the film's famous opening scene: a seven and a half minute unbroken shot roving through a studio lot, eavesdropping on pitches and conversations.
The movie manages to be both affectionate and acidic towards Hollywood. Some of the satire is quite scathing, but there is a real love for movies that shines through.  There are numerous references to other films, with the camera frequently lingering on movie posters or photos of stars and directors that somehow comment on the events in the story.  It also has numerous celebrity cameos (including Bruce Willis, Jeff Goldblum, Anjelica Huston, Jack Lemmon, Julia Roberts, Harry Belafonte and John Cusack).
The film flows along with it's main plot being subsumed among various digressions, twists and subplots.  The jokes are genuinely funny, for the most plot, and the thriller element is quite intriguing.  At the end the film subverts the traditional "Hollywood ending" managing to be both happy and surprisingly bleak.
Tim Robbins is good in the lead managing to be both charismatic and suave as well as shockingly cruel and ruthless without ever being entirely unsympathetic.  Whoopi Goldberg stands out as a tenacious detective, as does country singer Lyle Lovett as a creepy cop.  Richard E. Grant also makes the most of a small role as a flamboyant, pretentious director.

Tim Robbins is The Player