Hollywoodland: Critic Reviews

The elegant biodrama Hollywoodland presents all options in its meditation on the price of the American way of fame, a toll exacted even back when 'land' still completed the letters of the sign famously visible from high in the Hollywood Hills.

The movies love a tasty murder, which is why Ben Affleck has packed on the pounds, slipped on some tights and given this exasperating film far more than it gives in return.

Hollywoodland explores an intriguing bit of Hollywood history, and through the strength of its performances keeps us engaged and entertained.

It's almost a good movie.

The movie doesn't build to anything dramatic or enlightening.

Like its protagonist, Hollywoodland has an easy, sleazy appeal -- a languid descent into the mystery's murky depths.

A bit of a hodgepodge -- unnecessarily complicated, clumsily structured, uncertainly directed and, as a whodunit, ultimately unsatisfying.

While it doesn't innovate, it does surprise.

Hollywoodland is filled with dazzling ingredients that never fully congeal. The sparks don't always connect. Nevertheless, they do sparkle.

In the noir tradition of Chandler and Hammett, little in Hollywoodland is what it appears.

Reeves had an easy but peppy presence that was very likable, and Affleck's moroseness doesn't do him justice.

For every Burt Lancaster, there have been thousands of George Reeveses, and Affleck pays them the kind of fond homage -- an offer of limelight -- that they otherwise never get.

It's not a definitive Reeves biography. It's not trying to be. Hollywoodland is after something more off-center, and more interesting.

The period details and performances are uniformly superb (Bob Hoskins is especially good as MGM executive Eddie Mannix), and the major characters are even more complex than those in Chinatown.

With a more restrained, subtler actor, Hollywoodland could have been what it aspires to be: a study of twin trajectories (Reeves and Simo) caught in the spotlights of Tinseltown, where dreams crash headlong into hard reality -- and dubious ethics.

A character study of a low-rent private eye who gets in way over his head when he tackles a high-profile case, a role brilliantly brought to life by Oscar-winner Adrien Brody.

This isn't the sort of film you stand up and cheer for -- it's too subtle and dark for that. But it is a film that lingers in the mind, asking questions without answers, telling a story that has no clear ending.

The movie plays as an engaging jaunt into the past, which not only re-creates old Hollywood but comments on the superficial and fleeting nature of fame.

Take my word for it: Hollywoodland is well worth seeing.

Hollywoodland, a fascinating, intelligent and probing new film noir about the unsolved Tinseltown mystery surrounding the death of actor George Reeves.

Bernbaum uses the doubt that has swirled around the circumstances of Reeves' death as a framing device that serves to enumerate the other possibilities... but that annoyingly distracts from the most flavorsome and involving matters at hand.

Hollywoodland is laden with atmosphere but moves like it has lead in its tights.

It's just another sordid tale from a city famous for them. But Hollywoodland explains so much about today's Hollywood, from the cozy ways the cops have always played ball with the studios and stars, to the career-killing pain of type-casting.

The interplay between hard facts and the dreams that are the currency of movie actors, agents and producers that gives Hollywoodland both its glitter and its grit.