Bowfinger (1999) * * * *

Directed by:  Frank Oz

Starring:  Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham, Christine Baranski, Robert Downey, Jr, Jamie Kennedy

Z-movie film producer Bob Bowfinger (Martin) is a desperate man.    He's the type of guy who charges naive, hopeful young actors $25.00 to audition for one of his movies.    His accountant has written a screenplay called "Chubby Rain", about aliens that invade Earth via raindrops.    Bowfinger tells his staff of followers that he has important meetings with important people and promises the movie will be made.    They believe him and why not?    Without him, they would have no place in show business at all, so they cling to gullible hope.

Bowfinger manages to procure a table in a restaurant next to studio bigwig Jerry Renfro (Downey) and, with a disconnected car phone, loudly pretends to have a conversation with Hollywood-types over "the new Kit Ramsey movie".    Downey is intrigued, even though he clearly sees the dangling wire from the phone, and agrees to finance the movie if Kit Ramsey will star in it.     Getting Ramsey (Murphy) to star is a far more difficult task.    The paranoid and super-rich Ramsey throws Bowfinger out of his car, but Bowfinger can't return to his hopeful crew and tell them he didn't close the deal, so...

In an ingenious, tenuous plan, Bowfinger decides to make the movie with Kit Ramsey as his star, even though Ramsey will have no idea he's in a movie.   "Tom Cruise didn't know he was in that vampire picture until two years later," he rationalizes to Dave (Kennedy), who becomes his cameraman and co-conspirator.     He tells his actors and crew that Ramsey prefers not to mingle with his co-stars and prefers one take for realism.    They buy it and Bowfinger ventures out to make "Chubby Rain", featuring a Midwest-born blonde fresh off the bus named Daisy (Graham), who sleeps with whichever person will be able to get her a bigger role in the movie.

It is helpful to Bowfinger's cause that Ramsey is terrified of aliens and consults a local cult named MindHead (led by Terence Stamp), to "keep it together".     When Ramsey is approached on the street by actors screaming about an alien invasion, Ramsey is truly terrified.     During the proceedings, Bowfinger hires a body double named Jif (also played by Murphy), who lists being a frequent Blockbuster renter as "movie experience" and has braces.    Jif is asked to do things like run across an expressway full of speeding cars and is assured by Bowfinger, "Don't worry, these are all stunt drivers."

I've explained plenty of the plot, but also what makes Bowfinger incredibly funny are its jabs at Hollywood and its wicked satire.    It pokes fun at Hollywood, Scientology, filmmaking, and of course its own goofy, but lovable characters.     This is Eddie Murphy's best film work.    He creates two completely separate, yet equally hilarious characters.     They are so different, we sometimes forget it's Eddie Murphy playing both parts.     Steve Martin (who wrote the script also) is part desperation, part ego, part schemer, and isn't a thousand miles removed from big studio chiefs.    He knows a lot, which means he knows what he can get away with.     His keeping Chubby Rain afloat is a high-wire act that could come crashing down at any second.  

Bowfinger keeps the right note the entire movie.     As a satire, it works better than The Player or other films skewering Hollywood because it isn't mean.     It knows, sees, and finds things funny.    We wind up finding them funny too.     I wouldn't dream of telling you how Bowfinger ends, but it's interesting to see Kit Ramsey's reaction when he's watching his "performance" on screen.    He's slyly amused, as if he admires Bob Bowfinger's devious ways as much as we do.