Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

jimbo-53-186511 Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin) is the boss of Bowfinger International Pictures - a film company that has had zero big hits to its name. One of his colleagues comes up with an idea for a new film which Bobby likes and upon reading the script he takes it to big shot movie producer Jerry Renfro (Robert Downey Jr). Renfro agrees to produce the film, but only if Bowfinger can get the Hollywood star of the moment Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) to star in the film. Bowfinger approaches Ramsey and asks him if he will star in the film, but Ramsey declines. However, not wanting to miss out on an opportunity to hit the big time Bowfinger decides to make the film anyway with poor Ramsey being blissfully unaware that he is starring in a film...Apologies for using the tagline for The Truman Show as my summary but I felt that this was quite a good way to summarise this film. Steve Martin has clearly been partly influenced by this film when he came up with the idea for Bowfinger; Ramsey's ordinary everyday life is being used to make a film (the same as The Truman Show except the Truman Show was a TV Series as far as I can recall). The film also has hints of Sunset Boulevard about it; except in this case it's a faded filmmaker using a prolific actor as his basis to make a huge amount of cash. Therefore, it isn't entirely original, but to be fair it is a funny film...Back in the 80's and 90's Murphy (like his character Kit Ramsey) was acting royalty and made some very high profile films and Bowfinger does show some of his greatness. His performance as Kit Ramsey is electric and my only slight criticism with this is that his performance here is perhaps too similar to his Buddy Love character in The Nutty Professor (this is more evident in the early stages of the film). Having said that though he was still fun to watch (and he plays a dual role here which is always good to see).As a satire, it isn't quite as strong as Sunset Boulevard (and isn't quite as good), but Martin does do a good job at exposing the greed of filmmakers and their unrelenting desire to use anyone and anything in order to reach the top; this is evident when Bowfinger hires a Ramsey lookalike (played unsurprisingly by Eddie Murphy in a dual role). He convinces Jiff (Murphy's double) to run across a busy freeway and tells Jiff that all of the vehicles on the freeway are driven by stunt drivers (in order to convince Jiff to carry out this dangerous manoeuvre). Jiff believes Bowfinger because he is naïve and Bowfinger exploits Jiff's naivety by telling him that what he's doing is an errand (which is something Jiff likes doing). This was quite a good critique (and was a pretty funny scene as well). Heather Graham (looking as hot as ever) plays Daisy a rather clichéd young starlet who effectively tries to sleep her way to the top - she's a rather simplistic character without much development, but Graham does fairly well in this role.I think the biggest strength with this film is how well Steve Martin and Frank Oz sell the film; we're essentially seeing Kit Ramsey's normal reactions to strange scenarios that Bowfinger is throwing at him in order to make his film and none of it ever feels contrived or unbelievable. I was sold on the fact that Bowfinger could make a film based on Ramsey's reactions alone (and his paranoia) and use this as a framework (with some editing) to make a film. It was actually pretty clever and as mentioned it was also pretty funny.If I was to levy any criticism on the film then it would lie with Robert Downey Jr (not his performance), but with him being a rather pointless addition to the film despite him seemingly being important at the start of the film.Bowfinger is still a very funny film with both Martin and Murphy being the real standouts here. It gets two thumbs up from me!!

slightlymad22 One of Steve Martin's best movies, and one of Eddie Murphy's best too. This has several laugh out loud moments.Plot In A Paragraph: Hollywood, today: Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin) a down on his luck actor-producer-director, has a script which a friend has written. Completely convinced of its quality, he decides to take a last shot at fame and fortune. A famous producer(Robert Downey Jr) promises him to do it, but there is one condition: Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) Hollywood's number one star, has to be in it. So, Bobby tries his luck with Kit, who rejects him, so he then decides to shoot the film himself. Featuring an aspiring beauty from Ohio (Heather Graham) and Kit Ramsey - who does not even know he's being filmed.

sesht One of the best mainstream comedies I've ever seen, this also seemed one of the smartest, and that generally is an oxymoron.Essentially a movie-within-a-movie being made by an unflappable character, the earnestness of everyone involved (pitch-perfect acting to assure the audience that they're not 'IN' on the joke) allows us to buy into the premise, always a hard thing, and then reels us in; hook line and sinker.Curious as to why it did not translate to better/heavier movies for it's pedigreed cast (Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham and Terence Stamp), who went back to slumming in insipid commercial fare after this (other than Stamp, of course, who's been alternating good fare with bad regularly).Could watch this over and over, and introduce this to folks who've unfortunately been forced to put up with the dredge that both Martin and Murphy are otherwise now known for, and it's not like Heather Graham has set either her fan world, or the critics or the box office on fire since, and it's definitely not for a lack of talent, since that's one commodity the ensemble has in abundance.Here's to hoping someone watching this decides to do it better, perhaps with the same ensemble, or with newer faces/characters...however it works.

FlashCallahan When grasping director Bobby Bowfinger finally finds the 'perfect' script, a cheesy sci-fi story called "Chubby Rain", he decides to put everything on the line and give it a shot.Gathering together an ambitious young Ohio actress, a melodramatic stage actress and a laid back male hopeful.Armed with a handful of illegal immigrants for a crew, a tiny budget, and equipment stolen from a nearby studio, Bowfinger lacks just one thing, Hollywood's hottest action star, Kit Ramsey.Refusing to give up when Kit doesn't take the part, Bowfinger and his crew do whatever it takes to complete the flick - secretly filming Kit without his permission and using his nerdy look-alike brother to fill in for remaining scenes....Just as it was looking like there was no coming back for the two comedians, Murphy and Martin hit us with this.It's one of the best satires of the Hollywood machine in years, and precedes the awful Tropic Thunder by nine long years.There is a lot of fun to be had here. Murphy hasn't been this good since Coming to America, and it's clear that he is having the time of his life. Sadly as of the 29/3/2012, he hasn't done anything noteworthy since.Martin is back on form as writer and star, but keeps his role very low key compared to the other actors.Hollywood and Scientology are ripped to shreds, and this could have been a perfect movie, id they had just left out a lot of the visual gags.It reminds one of Landis comedies from the eighties, and there are some jokes you may miss on the first viewing.Cruelly overlooked on initial release, this is a movie for film lovers and fans of old school comedy.