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'Hollywoodland' mystery is short on oomph

By BOB LONGINO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

As the flashy and slightly overlong "Hollywoodland" conjectures, in 1959, a year after the final new episode of TV's "Adventures of Superman," the canceled series' despondent real-life star, George Reeves, climbed the stairs in his Beverly Hills home and either:

1) Was accidentally shot and killed in a drunken argument with his new, deliciously named girlfriend, Leonore Lemmon; or

Focus Features

'Hollywoodland'

B-

The verdict: Able to leap only a really short building in a single bound.

Director: Allen Coulter
Starring: Adrien Brody, Diane Lane, Ben Affleck, Bob Hoskins, Kathleen Robertson
Run time: 126 minutes
Release date: Sept. 8, 2006
Rating: R for language, some violence and sexual content.
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2) Died at the hands of a home-invading studio thug in the wake of the actor's horribly messy affair with an MGM mogul's wife; or

3) Picked up a loaded Luger and simply blew his own brains out.

"Hollywoodland," featuring a game Adrien Brody as a low-rent detective investigating the ugliness behind Reeves' apparent suicide, is certainly no "Rashômon," the Japanese classic that expertly explored a crime from various points of view. But "Hollywoodland's" noirish leanings and spot-on period settings and costumes make it at least watchable.

Though a closed case, Reeves' death has been a Hollywood riddle pretty much since the last time his popular TV show's announcer intoned, "Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive ... "

"Hollywoodland" seeks to dip into that Hollywood Babylon of whispered back-lot goings-on and surprising and shocking deaths. It's also the first of a one-two noir-like punch. On Sept. 15, Brian De Palma's "The Black Dahlia" debuts, based on another longtime Hollywood mystery — the 1940s unsolved death of an actress wannabe.

At its best, "Hollywoodland" — its title referring to the era when the city's infamous sign was four letters longer — showcases several solid performers, including a fiery Bob Hoskins and a stiff-necked Joe Spano as Hollywood executives whose studio is run near mafioso-style.

Diane Lane could generate strong supporting actress Oscar buzz as Toni Mannix, the studio exec's aging but still beautiful wife who not only bedded Reeves but bought him his fashionable home. Lane is a heady mixture of rattled hope and outright hysteria. There's not a scene she's in she doesn't steal.

Also, it's a kick just to watch Ben Affleck toil as Reeves, a lump of a guy with a sheepish grin and barely enough talent to land a one-scene gig in "Gone With the Wind." Rarely has a bad actor been so accurately and effectively portrayed with such steady ... well, bad acting.

Affleck's hammy style also superbly sells a nightclub scene where, in his pre-"Superman" days of eager self-promotion, Reeves worms his way into a celebrity photo for the newspapers. The resulting snapshot is as amusing and telling as Cary Grant's unfortunate photo op at the United Nations in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest."

"Hollywoodland" gets a lot right — the chuck wagon lunchbox Brody's son holds in his car trip to school, the '50s clothes and vintage Hollywood settings, the breezy throwaway lines (Reeves talks about the armored knight movie he made that was so cheap "we all rode the same horse").

It's also nice to see Brody leading a drama again (he's not had this much quality screen time since "The Pianist"). But there's less oomph to his quest than there probably ought to be.

Probably worse, while Affleck does sell Reeves' clammy celebrity, he seems unable to generate much nuance, relevancy or emotional connection with an audience about his character's demise.

Here we have a mystery surrounding a star's bloody corpse and the effect is more "so what?" than anything else.

We could say, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." But that just conjures up memories of the kind of mystery movie "Hollywoodland" only wishes it could be.