Recently, when we were preparing our list of the greatest leading men of all time, we had occasion to consider the latter days of Robert DeNiro. The closer you get to the present day, the uglier his career gets, and the more it appears he's just in it these days for the paychecks that will get him into the better restaurants. When I sat down for a viewing of his latest, What Just Happened, I wasn't expecting much, especially since his comic track record hasn't been stellar since Midnight Run. The fact that the film's author, Art Linson, is a friend of DeNiro's was also unpromising, since such nepotistic endeavors flatter the friendship over the art, and what's more, it's an inside-Hollywood movie, which has produced its share of great films, but more than its share of stinkers.
I won't say that it's a triumph for DeNiro, or even a return to form, but most of the movie's failings -- of which there aren't enough for me to call it bad -- are those of Barry Levinson's uninspired direction and a somewhat aimless and formless script. DeNiro doesn't turn in the kind of legendary performance he was once known for, but that's only because the script doesn't let him. In fact, his role as frazzled middle-aged movie producer Ben -- a stand-in for Linson -- is one of his finest in years: he never explodes only because he's too ineffectual and harried to aspire to an explosion. It's a tight, focused, and highly competent performance as a man nearing the end of his rope and no idea of what to do when he gets there, but because he's in such an absurd profession, and surrounded by such grandly dysfunctional people, that circumstance is understood -- by him and by us -- to be comic instead of tragic. It's a performance that won't remind anyone of Travis Bickle or Rupert Pupkin, but it should definitely remind them that DeNiro still has a few surprises left in him.
It's in this inherent unseriousness that the picture succeeds in its modest way. Everyone in the film carries on as if the fate of the world revolves around the decisions they make based on egomania, resentment and cowardice, and the laughs come from the fact that their utter irrelevance even in their own lives manages to create an aura of sustained menance and philosophical unease even as we see DeNiro haplessly trying to convince a self-satisfied auteur that audiences won't enjoy the brutal on-screen slaughter of a dog as much as he does. He's also assisted by a cast that, in the tradition of the better inside-baseball movies about movies, likewise are willing to take the piss, most especially John Turturro as his omniphobic agent and Bruce Willis, performing what appears to be an unbelievably heartless parody of Bruce Willis. What Just Happened isn't a great movie, but it's a good movie, and Robert DeNiro needs to get back to making more good movies. This one's a start.
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