The Player (1992)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Griffin Mill	Tim Robbins	½
June Gudmundsdottir	Greta Scacchi	½
Walter Stuckel	Fred Ward
Detective Susan Avery	Whoopi Goldberg	½
Larry Levy	Peter Gallagher	½
Joel Levison	Brion James
Bonnie Sherow	Cynthia Stevenson
David Kahane	Vincent D'Onofrio
Andy Sivella	Dean Stockwell	½
Tom Oakley	Richard E. Grant
Dick Mellom	Sydney Pollack	-
Detective Paul DeLongpre	Lyle Lovett	-
Celia	Dina Merrill	-
Whitney Gersh	Gina Gershon	-
Steve Reeves	Jeremy Piven	-

Review

The mystery which makes up the frame story never quite feels as important to director Robert Altman as his mocking of Hollywood in this satire starring Tim Robbins and featuring cameos from just about everybody in the American movie business. Robbins plays a cold-hearted Hollywood studio executive whose job is to refuse writers and scripts, so when he starts receiving threatening letters, the potential suspects and reasons are many. The film is clever in a smug but unflashy way; everything fits so neatly together and is told with such aloofness that you most certainly will never feel anything. But for anyone with a deep interest for or a foot inside the business, The Player has enough subtle self-referencing to solicit at least a few chuckles, albeit probably not many outright laughs.