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Hollywoodland stars Ben Affleck as real life actor George Reeves ( tv's Superman) who was found dead under mysterious circumstances in 1959. Also stars Diane Lane as the wife of a ruthless studio executive, Bob Hoskins. She takes up with Reeves ( her husband doesn't seem to mind as long as she is happy ) and supposedly helps him with his acting career. Enter ex-cop and hustling gumshoe, Adrian Brody, who is hired by Reeves mother ( Lois Smith ) to find out exactly how Reeves died. Police say it was suicide and Hollywood seems to want it left that way as Brody encounters some pretty stiff opposition to his efforts at finding the truth.
There is some excellent acting by Affleck, Lane, Hoskins and Brody. The director went for a noir murder mystery 50ish atmosphere that works in general but the story is told in flashback and I felt there was too much of the detective and too little of Reeves. And though the film was inspired by the death of real life Reeves, this is more fiction than fact and focuses on the supposition that Reeves was possibly murdered by his fiancee ( played by Robin Tunney) orby Lane herself ( because he left her for a younger woman ) or by someone sent by Hoskin's to kill Reeves out of revenge. I do believe the film would have been much better, and much more interesting, had it stuck to the facts surrounding George Reeves real life and death. But I have to say that I enjoyed Hollywoodland just the same, and it was a much better film than The Black Dahlia, which also used fictional characters to tell a story inspired by a real life crime.
:4:
There is some excellent acting by Affleck, Lane, Hoskins and Brody. The director went for a noir murder mystery 50ish atmosphere that works in general but the story is told in flashback and I felt there was too much of the detective and too little of Reeves. And though the film was inspired by the death of real life Reeves, this is more fiction than fact and focuses on the supposition that Reeves was possibly murdered by his fiancee ( played by Robin Tunney) orby Lane herself ( because he left her for a younger woman ) or by someone sent by Hoskin's to kill Reeves out of revenge. I do believe the film would have been much better, and much more interesting, had it stuck to the facts surrounding George Reeves real life and death. But I have to say that I enjoyed Hollywoodland just the same, and it was a much better film than The Black Dahlia, which also used fictional characters to tell a story inspired by a real life crime.
:4:
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