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Amazon.co.uk Review
Amazon.co.uk Review
What makes the film work is inevitably Kevin Spacey's savage performance as Buddy, a bully and a toady who had a heart once but gave it up to his career producing schlock; though Buddy rants and raves and delivers killer one-liners, much of the strength of the performance is in subtle work with his eyes. Frank Whaley is almost equally fine as Guy in all the two-hander scenes; while Michelle Forbes is convincing as the woman director who forms a tentative alliance with Guy. George Huang's direction is perfectly competent: it never gets in the way of his fine script and the extraordinary performances.
On the DVD: Swimming with Sharks comes to DVD in its original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1. There's an extensive commentary by George Huang in which he talks us through his years of misery in a junior studio job and is entertaining about all the horrid bosses whose bad behaviour--abuse, exploitation, pretending to praise him to a dead phone--he has combined into Buddy. He is also charmingly modest about the major if abrasive contribution Kevin Spacey made to the film, not only as actor but also as someone who would always tell a director if he did something less than brilliant. --Roz Kaveney
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The dvd has a very good profile of spacey which really shows his devotion to his art.
Swimming with Sharks is a film designed to bite the hand that fed it. It attacks the vicious system that enables, indeed encourages studio executives to behave like spoiled children in tyrannical control of their own private fiefdoms, much as Altman's The Player did in the 80s (no surprise to see Spacey's film studio VP launch into a seething attack on Altman, then!), and rewards them for using and abusing those poor wretches over who they clambered to the top. "This is not like running a business," says Rex (Benicio del Toro), the previous incumbent of assistant to the Senior Executive Vice President of Keystone Pictures, "this is showbusiness."
"I paid my dues," says the VP, Buddy Ackerman, to Guy, the unfortunate assistant turning the tables on his torturer, as if that suddenly justifies the vicious treatment meted out to all and sundry, just as senior doctors resent any change to the system to prevent junior doctors having to work 120 hour weeks on the grounds that they had to do it and it didn't do them any harm, did it?
But does Guy change the world when he has the power to do so? The best part of this film is the ending, which avoids the happy cliches and goes for a darkly pessimistic view of the world - that people are ultimately selfish and out for all they can get. Bet Hollywood felt uncomfortable with that; either that, or the current rash of Exec VPs feel so secure in their power base that it can afford some noirish irony at their expense without feeling they need to wash more of their dirty linen in public (Michael Eisner and Disney have done plenty of that!)
Perhaps it's true after all that Americans don't understand irony, but this is a powerful but watchable film that deserves your attention.
There is a lot more to it than what most people appreciate. Anyone who has been involved in showbusiness for a long time will be able to appreciate the idea behind "earning your dues" or the repeated question of "what is it that you really want?" I recommend it to anyone who is seriously interested in entering showbusiness. There is a Faustian deal to be struck and nothing is going to come easy.
Spacey plays the role of ruthless movie mogul, Buddy Ackerman. He is the man who knows how to get to the top in showbusiness and working for him will ensure a certain pedigree. This presents itself as the opportunity of a lifetime for young Guy, Buddy's new executive, a lover of films with naive ambitions of untainted success in the movie industry.
What follows is a year of Guy enduring a whole range of psychological and physical abuse, as he tries to fit the hard world he is living in with the ideal he tries to live up to. In the end though, he will discover far more about the nature of showbusiness than he could have ever imagined and a choice will have to be made. Guy will have to decide what it is that he really wants?
Part hostage drama, part white collar fable, part black comedy reality check, Swimming with Sharks is a very original piece that is worth watching again and again. The DVD is disappointingly low on extras. Kevin Spacey's interview does not really lend much to the film's content and only sheds light on how tight the filming schedule was. It is unique in the respect that the subject matter is the world of showbusiness, not an uncommon topic in today's celebrity obsessed times, but we see none of its superficially glamorous vaneer or any representatives of its stars.
Summary: Required watching for every person who thinks their dream is to be in showbusiness
*This review first published on Dooyoo and Ciao under my "Black Swan" account*
smug...
smug... spacey steals scene after scene in this piss-poor attempt to examine man. and film. and the boss. and spacey's smug face.
note. Read more
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