Swimming With Sharks

Swimming With Sharks is far from being an entirely satisfying film but it somewhat out-of-kilter tone makes it intriguing.  Evidently based in fact with the central character Guy (Frank Whaley) a stand-in for writer-director George Huang, who did indeed work for six years for various movie executives, including Joel Silver, the film is a kind of pay-back for all the humiliation and exploitation endured, a mordant biting of the hand so to speak (Huang has done a small amount of work in television since but that is about it.

Guy is a fresh-faced intern for hot-shot senior exec. Buddy Ackerman (Kevin Spacey) . Buddy believes that bullying is the best way to get Guy to perform and he’s right. But then Guy meets an attractive producer, Dawn Lockard (Michelle Forbes) who encourages him to stand up to Buddy. Bad advice.

At times, particularly in its latter stages, Swimming With Sharks seems to have had its origins in the theatre. The bulk of the film is given to the three main characters (Benicio Del Toro appears briefly at the outset never to be seen again) and to the spoken word.  In this respect it is often cutting (sometimes literally so) with Buddy having a fine way with the crushing putdown and Spacey being particularly good with his character’s stick and carrot methodology, alternately excoriating and seductive.

Whaley and Forbes (who looks disconcertingly like the love child of Christian Slater and Jim Carrey) are adequate although their relationship never adds up.  Dawn switches overnight from being a hard-nosed, ambitious producer to girl-next-door with a heartfelt appreciation of Guy's good nature for no apparent reason. Equally, the film’s ending is determined by Huang’s moral agenda rather than any credible motivation.   

Swimming With Sharks doesn’t cut it as a drama, even as an exposé of Hollywood it is too caricatural to satisfy (if you want to see a good example of this kind of thing check out Vincent Minnelli’s The Bad And The Beautiful) but it is mordantly entertaining.

 

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