Movie Review for Hollywoodland

Summary: June 16, 1959. The glamour of Tinseltown permanently fades for actor George Reeves, the heroic Man of Steel on TV's "Adventures of Superman," as the actor dies in his Hollywood Hills home. Felled by a single gunshot wound, Reeves leaves behind a fiancée--aspiring starlet Leonore Lemmon--and millions of fans who are shocked by his death. But it is his grieving mother, Helen Bessolo, who will not let the questionable circumstances surrounding his demise go unaddressed. Helen seeks justice, or at least answers. The Los Angeles Police Department closes the case, but Helen hires--for $50 a day--private detective Louis Simo. Simo soon ascertains that the torrid affair Reeves had with Toni Mannix, the wife of MGM studio executive Eddie Mannix, might hold the key to the truth. But truth and justice are not so easily found in Hollywood. Simo pursues dangerous and elusive leads in both high and low places and, in trying to turn up the heat, risks getting burned. The detective also uncovers unexpected connections to his own life as the case turns more personal and he learns more about Reeves himself. Behind the icon was a complex man who gave his life to Hollywood in more ways than one.

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Kevin Carr of 7M Pictures (7/0)
            It's not a crisp as L.A. Confidential, but it does its job simultaneously glorifying the silver a...

By Staci Layne Wilson of About.com (7/0)
            Hollywoodland is worth seeing for anyone who appreciates actors at their apex, plus flawless peri...

By John Wirt of Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA) (7/0)
            With its memorable performances and haunted film noir tone, Hollywoodland is among the early cont...

By Christopher Smith of Bangor Daily News (Maine) (7/0)
            Watching "Hollywoodland" unwind, it becomes clear that this is the movie Coulter and Bernbaum sho...

By Kam Williams of BlackFilm.com (7/0)
            Worthwhile for the amusement of the escape to a bygone era alone. But when you factor in an absor...

By Wesley Morris of Boston Globe (7/0)
            Half of the film is more persuasive than the other, and the connective threads are thin.

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Lawrence Toppman of Charlotte Observer (7/0)
            There's little here to titillate or inform us.

By Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune (7/0)
            ...a film of intricately layered flashbacks.

By Peter Rainer of Christian Science Monitor (7/0)
            Hollywoodland has too many leaks. The movie is also too ambitious for its own good.

By Russ Breimeier of Christianity Today (7/0)
            Hollywoodland is well made and boasts some strong performances. It just never reaches its full po...

By Pablo Villaca of Cinema em Cena (7/0)
            Tentando evocar a mesma atmosfera sufocante de Los Angeles %u2013 Cidade Proibida, surge como pál...

By Joshua Tyler of CinemaBlend.com (7/0)
            Turns Reeves' life into a multi-layered, gumshoe murder mystery and achieves something altogether...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Cole Smithey of ColeSmithey.com (7/0)
            The genius of the movie is the way in which it explores possible explanations for Reeve's death b...

By Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid (7/0)
            Sweeping precariously close to L.A. Confidential (1997) and Auto Focus (2002) as well as several ...

By Edward Douglas of ComingSoon.net (7/0)
            A convincing performance by Ben Affleck, but it gets too bogged down in the private life of Brody...

By Mary F. Pols of Contra Costa Times (7/0)
            Hollywoodland may not live up to its ambitions, but thanks in no small part to a subdued and poig...

By Matt Brunson of Creative Loafing (7/0)
            Affleck has been a punching bag for so long that his solid work here will surprise many.

By Philip Wuntch of Dallas Morning News (7/0)
            Hollywoodland is filled with dazzling ingredients that never fully congeal. The sparks don't alwa...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Boo Allen of Denton Record Chronicle (TX) (6/1)
            Handsome film that gets the details right but often becomes lost in its own sprawling narrative.

By Lisa Kennedy of Denver Post (7/0)
            In the noir tradition of Chandler and Hammett, little in Hollywoodland is what it appears.

By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (7/0)
            Affleck hasn't been this good in years -- maybe ever. And his credible performance is just one of...

By Steve Crum of Dispatch-Tribune Newspapers (6/1)
            The meaty beef of the story covers the lasting effect of TV's 'Superman,' particularly for the Ba...

By Erik Childress of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            More closely resembles a poorly made tabloid instead of a film with just an identity problem.

By Ian Nathan of Empire Magazine (7/0)
            Frustratingly ambiguous as a thriller, Coulter’s strong debut should be approached as a disturbin...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly (7/0)
            ...elegant biodrama...

By Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central (7/0)
            Deadening, dull, sepia-drenched faux-noir period hokum of a suddenly popular variety.

By Lewis Beale of Film Journal International (7/0)
            Tells this tale with energy and panache.

By Don R. Lewis of Film Threat (7/0)
            The film manages to draw the viewer in by combining a biography with classic elements of mystery,...

By Sean O'Connell of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            It's not unheard of for a movie detective to be more interesting than the corpse he (or she) is i...

By Sean O'Connell of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            It's not unheard of for a movie detective to be more interesting than the corpse he (or she) is i...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Brian Orndorf of FilmJerk.com (7/0)
            Hollywoodland uses Simo to avoid many of the formulaic traps laid for bio-pics, but seeing how in...

By Rob Vaux of Flipside Movie Emporium (7/0)
            Half the film is brilliant, half disposable. If only cutting it down the middle were an acceptabl...

By Liam Lacey of Globe and Mail (7/0)
            Could it be that Hollywoodland is something like real life -- a muddle that goes down, down and a...

By Michael Rechtshaffen of Hollywood Reporter (7/0)
            This noir take on George Reeves' death has its high points but doesn't quite fly.

By Stax of IGN Movies (7/0)
            Hollywoodland was clearly a labor of love, and it succeeds in making people not only remember who...

By Jane Stevenson of Jam! Movies (7/0)
            This is an interesting story with talented actors and slick set pieces, yet somehow it winds up b...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Jeanne Kaplan of Kaplan vs. Kaplan (8/0)
            The essence of the era is captured in everything, from the dresses worn by Diane Lane to all of t...

By Ella Taylor of L.A. Weekly (7/0)
            The film has potent things to say about the way Hollywood dreams can raise, then crush, the spiri...

By Robert Roten of Laramie Movie Scope (7/0)
            It is not just that people die in the film, its the way their souls get mauled while they are sti...

By Carol Cling of Las Vegas Review-Journal (7/0)
            ...spins its familiar tale with reasonably high style and more than a few flashes of substance.

By Bob Strauss of Los Angeles Daily News (7/0)
            A movie that shuffles back and forth between characters and genres but only succeeds when explori...

By Kenneth Turan of Los Angeles Times (7/0)
            Hollywoodland offers three scenarios to choose from, but the mystery becomes less rather than mor...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Pete Hammond of Maxim (7/0)
            A handsomely crafted story directed in the grand tradition of great mystery movies.

By Connie Ogle of Miami Herald (7/0)
            In this bland, ultimately dull reimagining, the question of who killed Superman turns out to be l...

By Duane Dudek of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (7/0)
            Affleck's most authentic work in years.

By Ron Wilkinson of Monsters and Critics (7/0)
            A nice mix of real facts, and what could have been real facts, in a sweet look at the man of stee...

By Kevin N. Laforest of Montreal Film Journal (7/0)
            A thoroughly involving modern noir, filled with hard-boiled dialogue and ambiguous characters - p...

By Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) (7/0)
            It wants to be the next Chinatown -- a film that's about an exercise in futility, but was savvy e...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Nell Minow of Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies (7/0)
            The brief scene with Affleck as Reeves as Superman as Kent is so true to the original that viewer...

By Michael Elliott of Movie Parables (7/0)
            Even though loose ends are left dangling, they are at least being dangled by an extremely compete...

By Ted Murphy of Murphy's Movie Reviews (7/0)
            One of the main reasons to see the movie is for the performance of Ben Affleck as George Reev...

By Anton Bitel of musicOMH.com (7/0)
            every bit as ambitious, if never as flawed, as the characters it portrays.

By Stuart Klawans of Nation (7/0)
            A well-meaning mediocrity.

By Manohla Dargis of New York Times (7/0)
            ...exasperating...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Anthony Lane of New Yorker (7/0)
            For every Burt Lancaster, there have been thousands of George Reeveses, and Affleck pays them the...

By Gene Seymour of Newsday (7/0)
            What's gratifying about Hollywoodland, a mood-inflected autopsy of Reeves' own hopes and dreams, ...

By Nick Davis of Nick's Flick Picks (6/1)
            Never makes a case that Reeves' death is worth probing, or even mourning; as on Superman, his hum...

By Jim Chastain of Norman Transcript (7/0)
            The film is sustained on its juicy minor characters.

By Jeffrey Westhoff of Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL) (8/0)
            The fatal flaw of Hollywoodland is as basic as the mystery genre gets: too much detective, not en...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (7/0)
            Imbalanced in the narrative department and oddly staid and static in execution, failing to do dra...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Roger Moore of Orlando Sentinel (7/0)
            It's just another sordid tale from a city famous for them. But Hollywoodland explains so much abo...

By John Thomason of Orlando Weekly (7/0)
            Bearing all the trappings of lazy cutting-room manipulation, it presents a puzzle hardly worth so...

By Wesley Lovell of Oscar Guy (8/0)
            The back-and-forth storytelling becomes tedious but good performances keep the film from failing ...

By Dennis Schwartz of Ozus' World Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Brody can't do much with his undeveloped character except chew-the-scenery like Dustin Hoffman ...

By Jeanne Aufmuth of Palo Alto Weekly (7/0)
            Transcends its clumsy title and proves itself a respectable period piece.

By Sean Burns of Philadelphia Weekly (7/0)
            Unable to decide if it wants to be a mystery or biography, Hollywoodland settles for doing both, ...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Glenn Kenny of Premiere Magazine (7/0)
            One of the nicest surprises of the late summer lull between blockbuster seasons, a smart period m...

By Mark R. Leeper of rec.arts.movies.reviews (8/0)
            Had they recognized that George Reeves was the real story--and that the dirty linen was only a s...

By Pam Grady of Reel.com (7/0)
            There's enough going on in Hollywoodland that its strengths -- its look, the majority of its perf...

By Robin Clifford of Reeling Reviews (7/0)
            ...except for a middling performance from Adrien Brody, Hollywoodland is a top-notch mystery yarn...

By Donald J. Levit of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (7/0)
            While the surface of 'Hollywoodland' promises nostalgia and noir, patience will reveal a subcurre...

By John P. McCarthy of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Although the mystery surrounding Reeves' demise fades out somewhat anti-climactically, 'Hollywood...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (7/0)
            This is a fine opportunity to peer through a window into the unglamorous side of Tinseltown's gol...

By Peter Travers of Rolling Stone (7/0)
            ...a steadily engrossing movie...

By James O'Ehley of SA Movie & DVD Magazine (7/0)
            Middle-aged angst - and not the mystery of Reeves' unsolved death - lies at the heart of Hollywoo...

By Carla Meyer of Sacramento Bee (7/0)
            Though they take artistic liberties, Bernbaum and director Allen Coulter respect their subject.

By Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com (7/0)
            ... even though parts of the picture don't quite hold together, in the end, it sticks with you.

By Jean Lowerison of San Diego Metropolitan (7/0)
            Lacks almost everything I want in a mystery: compelling characters, a motive, a few interesting d...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By David Elliott of San Diego Union-Tribune (7/0)
            Not a camp hoot like Mommie Dearest, nor a taut vision of the dream jungle like Sunset Boulevard,...

By Mick LaSalle of San Francisco Chronicle (7/0)
            The film, actually, is a little like Reeves himself: It starts promisingly and trails off into in...

By Gina Carbone of Seacoast Newspapers (NH/Maine) (7/0)
            Affleck ably balances Reeves' eager-to-please ambition and ego-crushing disappointment. He also l...

By Sean McBride of Sean the Movie Guy (8/0)
            It’s certainly a juicy, real-life mystery; one that’s explored with surprising non-commitment

By William Arnold of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
            ...the film's evocation of its era is immaculate.

By Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall (7/0)
            We want to understand Reeves and his life; corny sentiment around his death feels awkward and unn...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Nick Schager of Slant Magazine (7/0)
            A polished but puny imitation of yesteryear's detective yarns.

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Spirituality and Practice (7/0)
            A stylish film noir about the death of TV's Superman that reveals the inevitable downward arc of ...

By Nick Rogers of State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL) (6/1)
            Say all you want about Ben Affleck's bad movies. They at least give him the screen time he deserv...

By Stuart McGurk of thelondonpaper (7/0)
            It's Affleck's ghost of film future. Watch his hurt-glazed eyes as he sits in the screening of Fr...

By Dustin Putman of TheMovieBoy.com (8/0)
            The performances are first-rate across the board. Hollywoodland endures as a fulfilling and memor...

By Scott Nash of Three Movie Buffs (7/0)
            A well made film with high quality production values and good acting that just needed tighter edi...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Trevor Johnston of Time Out (7/0)
            It’s worth seeing for Affleck alone, deftly communicating the distance between the put-on cardboa...

By Tony Medley of tonymedley.com (6/1)
            Far too long, devoid of pace, lacking effective period ambience, this could have been a crackling...

By Ken Fox of TV Guide's Movie Guide (6/1)
            A dark, stylish tale of Tinseltown tawdriness out of the strange inconsistencies surrounding the ...

By Brian Tallerico of UnderGround Online (7/0)
            May not have all the answers about the death of one of the icons behind the big red 'S,' but by g...

By Urban Cinefile Critics of Urban Cinefile (7/0)
            From a character point of view, Adrien Brodey's emotional journey as a broken down investigator a...

By Claudia Puig of USA Today (7/0)
            ...the narrative bogs down...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Matthew Turner of ViewLondon (7/0)
            With a career-best performance from Ben Affleck, this is an enjoyable, well made thriller, even i...

By Willie Waffle of WaffleMovies.com (7/0)
            Ben Affleck is the Comeback Actor of the Year! ... Affleck has revived his career with a brillian...

By Steven Snyder of Zertinet Movies (7/0)
            A grinding, faithful homage to the classic crime procedural, about sultry love affairs that turn ...

By John Beifuss of Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            A kryptonite cocktail knocked back with a teary-eyed wink by Diane Lane, who emerges as the tarni...

By Greg Maki of Star-Democrat (Easton, MD) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            Hollywoodland is a complex film: part noir, part biopic, all powerful character study.

By Jordan Reed of Boxoffice Magazine (3/4) No reference
            Hollywoodland works best -- as a cold look at the entertainment industry's obsession with youth a...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Matt Stevens of E! Online (3/4) No reference
            The performances are top-notch...

By Richard Roeper of Ebert & Roeper (3/4) No reference
            To the credit of the director, the writer and the set design team though, Hollywoodland still suc...

By Robert W. Butler of Kansas City Star (3/4) No reference
            If Hollywoodland falls well short of greatness, it still can boast a great sense of time and plac...

By Kyle Smith of New York Post (3/4) No reference
            Despite the lovingly detailed costumes and the corruption that hangs over everything like smog, R...

By Stephen Whitty of Newark Star-Ledger (3/4) No reference
            Want a place where everything ends nicely? Where even tragedies end in a lesson learned? Forget i...

By Shawn Levy of Oregonian (3/4) No reference
            Hollywoodland takes a trashy real-life story and peels it open just enough to show us the human a...

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Gary Thompson of Philadelphia Daily News (3/4) No reference
            Hollywoodland had me wishing for the improbable: that somebody would release the Ben Affleck movi...

By Jack Garner of Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (3/4) No reference
            Hollywoodland might be frustrating. But if you welcome the chance to make up your own mind, then ...

By Phoebe Flowers of South Florida Sun-Sentinel (3/4) No reference
            He [director Allen Coulter] is clearly reaching for more than he ultimately achieves with this pr...

By Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) of St. Paul Pioneer Press (3/4) No reference
            Its wayward script lumbers between the Affleck and Brody storylines without making a meaningful c...

By Susan Walker of Toronto Star (3/4) No reference
            The interplay between hard facts and the dreams that are the currency of movie actors, agents and...

By Bob Longino of Atlanta Journal-Constitution (6/1) Not Reachable
            Able to leap only a really short building in a single bound.

                         Reviews of Hollywoodland
By Harvey S. Karten of Compuserve (7/1) Not Reachable
            Mixing past and present as though everything were taking place now is an interesting idea, but th...

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