San Diego Reader

An unforgettable character and not a lot to go with him. The character is a Hollywood hopeless called Jimmy Alto, a dumpy middle-aged man with shoulder-length dyed-yellow hair and floral-print shirt, who has never actually landed a single solitary part -- "It's all politics" -- and who finally finds his once-in-a-lifetime role as a Death Wish-type vigilante (code name: Jericho), and never mind that he is photographed exclusively in silhouette, that his artistic medium is the local TV news, and that his "good reviews" are public-opinion polls. Joe Pesci, in his own sort of once-in-a-lifetime role, never loses sight of the character's looniness even as he advances himself, and entrenches himself, as our mouthpiece. And Christian Slater, his dim-bulb sidekick, slower on the uptake than Laurel or Hardy, plays a very subdued, a very muted second fiddle, a contented and noncompetitive second fiddle. The crimefighting drift of the plot -- the all-purpose urban complaint about the spread of violence in America -- is not of much use as a metaphor for the filmmaking community per se. It keeps the focus on the external Hollywood, and doesn't pry behind the studio gates. With Victoria Abril; written and directed by Barry Levinson. 1994.

— Duncan Shepherd

• Rated R

This movie is not currently in theaters.