Let’s Make a Movie

Saturday Night Live helped launch the careers of many comedians over the years. The are many classic figures who stand as kings of comedy for their respective stints during, and after, their SNL days. Without Saturday Night Live we might not have had the rise of Michale Myers, Kevin Nelon, Will Farrel, Tiny Fey, and more. And, of course, two big figures to come out of Saturday Night Live were Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, both legends of the comedy genre who went on to have a number of successful movie projects come along once they left the comedy show.

It’s weird to think that a film starring these two actors, Martin and Murphy, could come and go in the late 1990s without a lot of fanfare or many people remembering that it even existed once it left theaters. It was made during the second big phase of Murphy’s career, when he was producing a string of remakes and family friendly films, like The Nutty Professor, Dr. Dolittle, and Mulan, while his more mature fare, such as Vampire in Brooklyn, wasn’t received as well. Bowfinger certainly sits at that more mature end of the spectrum, being a PG-13 comedy with more adult themes within it. It’s also a send-up of Hollywood filmmaking which might not have resonated with audiences at the time.

And yet, when I found the film at Blockbuster (during one of my many stints working for the company), I was surprised at just how funny the movie is. It’s not really an Eddie Murphy vehicle (another reason audiences might not have cared for it as much) but a Steve Martin film, one where he gets to act odd and crazy and be, well, Steve Martin. Murphy does get to play to his skills, doing a send-up of himself in one role while playing a second character in a goofy costume as well (something he does love to do). This is a film that surprisingly plays to the strengths of the lead actors and creates some fun and funny that still feels fresh and interesting even 25 years later. A rough and unknown gem of a film that can be enjoyed on its own merits all these years later.

Bowfinger (Steve Martin) is a down-on-his-luck, low-budget filmmaker. He owes everyone money, isn’t respected by any major studio, and realistically only has twenty bucks to his name. But the one thing he, and his studio, have going for them is one really good script: Chubby Rain, written by Bowfingers accountant, Afrim (Adam Alexi-Malle), and if he could just get a major star then maybe movie executives like Jerry Renfro (Robert Downey Jr.) would actually take his film seriously. All he needs is a way to make that happen.

That’s when inspiration strikes. After trying, and failing, to lure mega A-lister Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) to the production, Bowfinger decides he’ll just film Kit in it anyway, doing guerrilla filmmaking of Kit’s real life while random actors – Heather Graham as Daisy, Christine Baranski as Carol, and Kohl Sudduth as Slater – run up to him and shout lines about a coming alien invasion and the end of the world. Bowfinger gets the footage he needs but, in the process his crew is slowly driving Kit insane. Either Bowfinger’s whole production will get found out, or Kit will go off the deep end… but for the sake of the film, we just have to hope that happens once filming is over.

Directed by Frank Oz (who has filmed a number of successful comedies, like Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and What About Bob?, while also being the voice of a number of Muppets and, of course, Yoda), Bowfinger is a deeply silly, and fairly weird, little comedy. It’s a story of the absurd, a film with very low stakes, all told, that goes out of its way to make everything over-the-top and strange. It feels like a parody of the whole filmmaking process, making this a very insular comedy that strikes best for those that love and know film.

That is likely why I enjoy this film so much. I love film (as evidenced by the fact that I’ve been chatting about it on this site, off and on, since its very first posting all the way back in 2001). While I wouldn’t call myself an expert in cinema, neither on the technical side nor in being able to discuss the “true art” of the form, I do enjoy studio and independent works and go out of my way to try and see anything even a little interesting. Movies are my favorite hobby, from watching them to discussing them, and any film that gets to have fun with a story about the filmmaking process tends to strike my fancy.

Bowfinger is absurd, yes, but that’s much of its charm. There is no way that a filmmaker should be able to create a guerrilla film without the star knowing or realizing they’re being filmed. Hell, that kind of production would raise so many legal red flags that anything made from it should be sued out of existence (which, without spoiling it, the movie does find a way to cover). And yet, there is so much fun being had in Bowfinger that you don’t really care. The movie knows it’s unrealistic and it doesn’t try to ground itself too hard, just because it doesn’t need to.

It benefits from the fact that Chubby Rain, the film being made within the film, is a sci-fi alien horror flick. Kit, running around, getting chased by people, goes more and more insane as he starts to believe there is a real alien invasion taking place on the streets of Beverly Hills. This leads to wacky hijinks from everyone involved on both sides of the camera, and that only helps to play up the comedy and absurdity of the situation. Kit is increasingly paranoid as he thinks there’s a conspiracy going on around him… and there is, just not the one he expected.

I do think that Murphy’s Kit, parody of himself that he is, is probably the least interesting character in the film. We’re told (without being shown) that he’s a top-tier talent, but the only evidence we get of this is that he’s played by Eddie Murphy. Back in the 1990s, when Murphy was riding on top, that kind of gap in storytelling could be forgiven since, if Murphy was playing the character, we just assumed they were a talented actor. But now, 25 years removed, when Murphy hasn’t had many hits on his resume since, it’s harder to buy Kit as a star without a little more substance to his story. The film glosses past that because, “Eddie Murphy will always be a star,” except that didn’t exactly hold true long term.

The film works best when it’s focused on Martin’s Bowfinger and his hooligan filmmaking. This is the kind of character Martin is best at, a fast-talking loser working to con everyone around him with bravado and slight of hand. This feels like the kind of character Martin could have played on SNL, feeling like equal parts his sarcastic characters and his “Wild and Crazy Guy.” The character isn’t really a stretch for the comedian, but he doesn’t need to be. Matron’s performance, funny as it is, is also the grounding influence on the movie, bringing everything together and letting the film take its tone and style from Martin himself.

And it works. All these years later Bowfinger is just as weird and hilarious as I remember. It has plenty of funny big moments, with all the weird action sequences thrown in that Kit doesn’t understand, as well as great little jokes and running gags. I like so many moments in this film, and I enjoyed being able to go back after many years, seeing everything funny all over again. This is the kind of film you watch, laugh at, and then set aside to enjoy again five or ten years later when you’ve forgotten the jokes and can laugh at them with fresh eyes and ears. It holds up because it doesn’t try to be more than it is, a silly little comedy about a silly little film.

At the time it was released audiences didn’t respond that well, with the film only making $98.6 Mil against its (frankly too high) $555 Mil budget. But time has been kind to Bowfinger, turning it into something of a cult classic for comedy fans. It might not be the best film from either Martin or Murphy, but it is solid comedy that deserved to find the right audience on its own time.