A Hollywood agent's midcareer crisis proves a less fecund subject than one might think for writer-director Mike Binder. "Man About Town" is a highly uneven follow-up to Binder's similarly erratic "The Upside of Anger." New pic reps a major step forward for Binder's filmmaking skills, and it gives Ben Affleck a role suited to his temperament. But script is a crazy-quilt of bad and good ideas, and ridiculous story elements hinder what could have been an intelligent showbiz comedy-drama. Indie distribs both Stateside and abroad will think twice about handling the problematic film, but vid and tube prospects look good.Among professions ranking lowest in audience sympathy, talent percentery execs fall near the bottom along with lawyers, tax bureaucrats and parking cops, so "Man About Town" instantly has an uphill battle.
With Affleck currently in a major dip in his own career, casting him as Imaginative Arts Agency topper Jack (in what seems an explicit younger version of Michael Ovitz) seems like a case of a rather stiff and self-conscious thesp playing a guy much like himself.
But Jack never becomes the rooting interest the movie so wants him to be.
Stuck in a dead marriage with Nina (Rebecca Romijn) and unsure what to do with difficult TV writer clients such as Phil (Adam Goldberg) and hopeful clients such as David (Jerry O'Connell), Jack decides to take a night class in daily journal writing as a form of therapy. (The simple notion of just picking up a blank notebook and writing away never seems to occur to him.)
The class is taught with absurdly amusing pomp by Dr. Primkin (John Cleese), and one of the students is an extremely suspicious-looking woman in loud get-ups named Barbi Ling (Bai Ling).
Helmer Binder is on much surer ground at the agency itself, whose sleek office spaces, window views and company of characters make for a terrific movie combination of visual and social satire. Partners include Arlene (Gina Gershon), Morty (Binder) and Alan (Kal Penn), who are keeping the agency afloat as Jack goes off the deep end.
A series of artfully constructed flashbacks relate both Jack's difficult boyhood years (he was quite plump, and his older brother stole his first g.f.) and his rise through the agency. It emerges that Jack doesn't tolerate rejection and is forever trying to prove his inner mettle.
The film's extreme difficulties with its central storyline are all the more curious given its elegant handling of various background details and the more somber and adult moments that pepper its larger narrative.
What finally swamps "Man About Town" is the plot hatched by Barbi, a would-be screenwriter whose work was frequently rejected by Jack's agency and who wants revenge. Barbi comes off like a revival of the musty stereotype of the crafty Asian femme fatale. One bad idea leads to another, and it seems for a while that the film has lost itself in a disastrously unfunny comedy chasm.
A closing section in more farcical mode helps get the film back on track, but staging and execution are all over the map. As he showed in "Upside," Binder, a fine former standup comic, mysteriously struggles more with comedy than with drama. What was meant to be a bit of hilarity involving Affleck and a bad set of new teeth seems to come out of a different movie, for example, while sudden spurts of tragedy play with real impact.
Affleck isn't helped by the wild swings in tone and effect, and he never finds the needed warmth in Jack. As his spurned wife, Romijn plays it quiet and smart throughout. Binder, Gershon, Penn and Damien Dante Wayans as Jack's assistant make nearly every scene at the agency pulse with nervous energy. Cleese does what amounts to an amusing standup routine of his own.
Binder's sense of widescreen camera is outstanding, and couples with Russ Alsobrook's lensing and Pipo Wintter's production design (plus some fabulous CG effects work bridging scenes across various Los Angeles locales) for an exceptionally fine-looking pic. Occasional songs by Fredo Viola thoughtfully contribute to pic's serious side.
Camera (Deluxe color, Rainmaker and FotoKem prints, Panavision and Clairmont widescreen), Russ Alsobrook; editor, Roger Nygard; music, Larry Groupe; songs, Fredo Viola; music supervisors, Dave Jordan, Jojo Villanueva; production designer, Pipo Wintter; art director, Shannon Grover; set decorator, Louise Roper; costume designer, Trish Keating; sound (Dolby Digital), James Kusan; sound designer, Patrick Cicero; supervising sound editor, Christopher Harvengt; visual effects supervisors, Jason Dowdeswell, Marlo J. Pabon; special effects coordinators, Bill Mills, Ron Trost; visual effects, Rainmaker Animation & Visual Effects; digital visual effects, Look! Effects; stunt coordinator, J.J. Makaro; tooth prosthetics, Gary Archer; associate producer, Rachel Zimmerman; assistant director, Brian Giddens; second unit camera, Don McCuaig; casting, Sharon Bialy, Sherry Thomas. Reviewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival, Feb. 7, 2006. (Also in Berlin Film Festival -- market.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 97 MIN.
With: Kal Penn, Amber Valletta, Damien Dante Wayans, Laura Soltis, Spencer Forbes.
