Bowfinger
                                                                                                    
Director: Frank Oz
Year: 1999
Rating: 8.0
I went through this entire film with a big fat smile plastered on my face like a post office wanted poster. Written by Steve Martin and directed by Frank Oz, it is delightfully absurd, continuously comical but kind and gentle. Underneath all the understated whimsical humor is a big heart that loves all the characters in it, the dreamers. Martin's humor in his career has rarely been cruel, toxic or crude. Usually directed at himself. I think he is a big fan of the 1930s screwball comedies that could poke fun at people but never with malice. Comedy to me is often toxic these days - whether stand up or sitcom. This film is like an antidote to that. It is also a love letter to low-budget independent filmmaking - another thing that has nearly disappeared in the film world of huge budgets and crass commercialism. There was a day when someone with an idea would just make a film in the hopes that there would be an audience for it. This is about the love of filmmaking and the passion needed to overcome no money, no talent and no sets. Guerilla filmmaking. Done obviously to an exaggerated and idiotic extent for humor but with its heart always in the right place.



Bowfinger (Steve Martin) is a bottom rung independent producer with big dreams that some day he will make a film that will get the notice of the Hollywood big boys. And he thinks he finally has the script to do it. Written by his accountant (Adam Alexi-Malle) about aliens who attack earth by coming down disguised in rain drops. Its title is Chubby Rain. This is the film that will make him and he gathers around him a few other dreamers who want to break into show business. The method actor Carol (Christine Baransky), the stud, the cinematographer (Jamie Kennedy) who can "borrow" the equipment and then auditions for more. Charging the actors $25. In cash. Bowfinger has a little over $2,000 to make the film and confidently tells his people that every film starts off with $2,000 in cash. One of the lovely things in the film is how he can persuade his people that this is just the way films are always made. He tells them that he has gotten Kit Ramsey to agree to be in the film. Ramsey is a huge action star - he mentions Jacky Chan and Van Damme often - and is totally paranoid that aliens are out to get him and with an overwhelming desire to show his penis to the Laker girls. He is played with Eddie Murphy in a wonderfully anxiety driven ego performance.



But Bowfinger explains to his group that Kit hates being around other actors and so they will have to shoot him from a distance. Ramsey of course has no idea what is going on and his paranoia pushes him into the arms of Mind Head, a cult run by Terry (Terrence Stamp). Two others through auditions join the cast - the lovely Daisy (Heather Graham) literally right off the bus but with a sexual willingness that should take her far in Hollywood. Next, Bowfinger needs a black man with a great ass - as he explains in all of Kit's movies, he always shows his ass. In the door walks Jiff, a nearsighted pile of unadulterated sweetness with braces who really only wants to do errands. Played again by Murphy and probably the most lovable role in his career. One of Jiff's errands is to walk across the highway of speeding cars - don't worry they are stunt cars - in one of the funniest scenes ever.  Great job. Now go pick up some pens right after you walk across again. And then Enter the Ninjas.