I felt like I missed something with this one. In Roger Ebert's review of The Jerk (1979), he indicated that the audience reaction to comedy is subjective in movies. I thought that was an odd observation, but his observation might have been an apology for him not finding the humor in The Jerk.
Then, in his review for Bowfinger, Ebert wrote that the comedy "works on all cylinders." Well, now I'm the one wondering what I missed, because I just didn't find it all that funny.
I like the basic premise: Bowfinger (Steve Martin) is a director that's never made a movie. He's got an idea to make a movie with Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), one of the hottest African American actors working in Hollywood, but the catch is, he will make the film without Ramsey ever knowing he's in it, because Ramsey would never make a movie for an unknown director like Bowfinger.
The idea is absurd, but it's interesting to see how this film is able to make the concept "work."
At the same time, Bowfinger ends up hiring a "butt double" named Jiff. Later we'll learn that Jiff looks so much like Kit because they're actually brothers. Regardless, I was left wondering why Bowfinger felt the need to have Kit in the film at all after he hired Jiff. After all, Jiff looks enough like Kit to be his twin, so why does Bowfinger still try to use Kit in some scenes, and we are they still trying to get his release to use Kit's scenes in the film when they could just replace them all with Jiff?
Why bother? Why not just make an entire movie with Jiff? After all, at the end of this movie, they essentially do just that: making a film with Jiff in Taiwan.
Anyway, I liked the basic premise of Bowfinger, and there are some funny scenes. Seeing how Heather Graham goes from guy to guy is pretty funny, especially when Bowfinger tells her they're through because she slept with Jiff, and she asks "Why?" And he replies, "I never thought of it that way," and immediately takes her back.
Rating: 2/5 stars
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