I'm surprised
Joe Pesci is a fiery ball of comic rage energy in “Jimmy Hollywood”, Barry Levinson’s much-maligned flick about Hollywood dreamers turned vigilantes. It’s a film that falters and flags way more than you’d like it to, but Pesci is giving it his all and Levinson does have a point that feels somewhat more personal now- that the classy Hollywood paradise is dead, buried under the debris of ill-repute. And that was just the way it was in the 90’s.
Pesci’s Jimmy Alto seems a student of old time Hollywood. He’s an actor who believes he struggles to find roles because he was born in the wrong time- he’s a Cagney or Brando in a Tom Cruise world. But he loves the dream of long ago, and spends much of his time walking Hollywood Boulevard rattling off names, with his eyes closed, of stars who got their chance to make it to the big time. It’s quite a trick!
Jimmy has the confidence to believe his big break is coming but in the meantime, he winds up mostly hanging out with William (Christian Slater), a brain-addled street person who doesn’t really add much to Jimmy’s life but is a dependable listener. Their conversations are wittier than you would imagine- with William telling of his fear of the old Mummy movies and Jimmy responding with, and i’m paraphrasing, Mummy’s don’t fly from Egypt to America very often.
The movie is never funnier than with Jimmy as a deadbeat actor. His girlfriend (Victoria Abril) is seen getting mugged early at the ATM, only to discover that her account has been drained. Good thing Jimmy maxed it out before the thief could get the money..I guess. He also works a waiter job where he boasts that he could have gotten a role on “Matlock” but he was too intimidating for Andy Griffith.
This is a good role for Pesci, looking way over-tanned and sporting a ridiculous blonde hair piece meant to keep Jimmy looking in some way youthful. Jimmy comes across as fiercely opinionated and brazen, too smart and too frustrated to be contained within the world’s small box for him. We get a hilarious glimpse of it early when a customer says they wanted scrambled eggs, and waiter Jimmy does his best to accommodate.
I found it easy to buy the segue the film takes into the second half’s vigilantism. Jimmy’s car radio is stolen and apprehending the perp, only for the police to do nothing, Jimmy has an idea. Spurred on by seeing the Hollywood he loves descending into drugs, hookers, and violence, he decides he’ll start his own organization, which he calls S.O.S, where he and William will film the bad guys and send the tapes to the TV stations.
He becomes its hidden spokesman, filming himself in shadow, delivering big speeches of righteousness which the public responds to. This also gets way more dangerous as he finds himself in situations of gunplay and trespass. It becomes clear that the main joke is Jimmy performing his greatest role as vigilante, which is predictable and gets mixed results at best, but Pesci keeps the energy and indignation high.
Levinson knows that an actor’s life-long dream is to be seen and in Jimmy he not only has someone who feels he belongs to a place in the most reverential of ways, but also someone who’s need for the spotlight gets all the more insane. It’s hard not to see the ego boost this is giving him, or that the way he’s plotting his next course has a lot to do with the old movies he’s watched.
The ending for example has a great almost nod to “Dog Day Afternoon”. And when I say almost, I mean that in the worst of terms as the real ending really just cements Jimmy as a goofball rather than the second coming he claims to be. There are other moments, like chaining a perp to his bathtub, that don’t help matters either and in these, Levinson turns silly what is otherwise a fairly decent satire of the rise of vigilantism when criminal justice does nothing.
The other cast don’t get much to do either. Slater just seems pleased to be working with Levinson and just why the Abril character keeps staying with this glory-seeking lunatic, other than some of the banter is funny as she constantly tries to get him to see reason, is never really mentioned. Still, I found this movie better than the first time I saw it. It’s got more than a few flaws but it’s funny, well acted, and occasionally, well observed.