Swimming With Sharks
SWIMMING WITH SHARKS (15)
D: George Huang
Starlight/Cineville/Neofight/Mama'z Boy (Steve Alexander
& Joanne Moore)
US 1995
93 mins
Comedy/Thriller
W: George Huang
DP: Steven Finestone
Ed: Ed Marx
Mus: Tom Heil & Marco d'Ambrosio
Frank Whaley (Guy), Kevin Spacey (Buddy Ackerman), Benicio
del Toro (Rex), Michelle Forbes (Dawn Lockard), T.E. Russell (Foster Kane), Roy Dotrice (Cyrus Miles)
A young, naive assistant to a film executive takes revenge
on the pugnacious boss who steals his screenplay idea.
Swimming With Sharks is a bitterly acerbic black comedy
about the dog eat dog nature of Hollywood. Worth a watch for the spiteful dialogue and Kevin Spacey's scene stealing performance as a horrible bastard, but the unconvincing ending feels like
it comes out of nowhere and doesn't quite fit in with everything that preceded it. Robert Altman's 1992 film The Player (qv) tackled a similar theme in a much better fashion.
6/10
