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DVD, Rs. 599

“Hollywoodland” (Hollywood was initially called Hollywoodland) is also set in the same timeframe — the Fifties, the same place, Los Angeles, and tells the story of the mysterious death of George Reeves, who played Superman on television.

The movie actually tells two stories. One follows George Reeves from smooth operator to kept man to sulky bulky has-been who ends up with a bullet in his head on the night of June 16, 1959. The other story is of a dead beat private investigator, Louis Simo, who hopes to make money by stirring things up in Reeves’ death.

The police put it down as suicide due to depression but Simo, who starts off talking about foul play to get his picture in the papers, realises things are not quite right.

Reeves’ death is one of the great unsolved Hollywood mysteries and there are three theories floating about. One is that Reeves killed himself, the other that his fiancée shot him during an argument and the third is that movie moghul Eddie Mannix had him killed — Reeves was having an affair with his wife Toni.

The movie, however, does not play as a whodunit and certainly not noir like “China Town”. It is plays more like a drama about, of all things, redemption, hope and second chances. Coulter’s vision of the golden era of Hollywood is not as bleak and desolate as Polanski’s or Hanson’s. It is a gentler look with all frames dealing with the Reeves side of the story bathed in a golden hue.

While the movie does track Reeves’ descent from likeably smarmy wheeler dealer to a morose wash out, Simo’s story is life affirming. Simo plumbs the depths of his personal life as he conducts business in seedy hotel rooms and passes his days in a haze of Jack Daniels and cigarettes and cannot communicate with his son. On this case, however, Simo has an epiphany and climbs out of the black hole he has put himself into.

Cast-wise, Diane Lane as Toni Mannix, Reeves’ much older lover is brilliantly brittle while Bob Hoskins rocks as barely disguised thug-like Eddie. Ben Affleck is a revelation as Reeves, and he delivers a solid performance as the man who wants to be a movie star but does not have the talent or the luck to become one.

If there is a wrong note in the casting, it is Adrien Brody as Simo. Brody is a great actor but is too fragile to play the hard-boiled Jack Daniels swigging, chain smoking, gum shoe. He tries hard but then the earnestness shows. Maybe the original cast choice Hugh Jackman would have worked better.

The movie’s meditative pace might be a bit difficult for those with short attention spans but for those with patience, this is a movie that shows a slice of Hollywood at a time when the great golden age was beginning to show signs of tarnish.

Extras are no great shakes. There are a couple of deleted scenes. And it makes perfect sense that scenes were deleted as they add nothing to the movie. There is also a bit about the production design. One of the plus points of the extras are interviews with old timers including Jack Larson, who played Jimmy Olsen in the TV series, that gives rare insight into the days when the studio system was ending and television was slowly but surely taking hold of the collective conscience.

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