Not the final word on artistic compromise in the New Hollywood, but a good distance toward it. A down-on-his-luck producer picks a script (The Darkness and the Light) at random from his dead-letter pile, and tries to finance it with money from investors who only want to secure roles for their girlfriends. The scriptwriter and would-be director (a man of integrity who sits at home watching Grand Illusion on 16mm, not video) is teamed up with a recently graduated script doctor who "studied with the same teachers as Spielberg." Each of the three creative types has streaks of niceness and decency that wonderfully enhance the humor; and Martin Landau, Robert Wuhl, and Jace Alexander, never overstated, enhance it too. The movie loses some of its comic touch at about the halfway point, with overserious stuff about "relationship" and "motivation," and it never quite regains it. With Robert De Niro, Danny Aiello, Eli Wallach, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Laurie Metcalf; directed by Barry Primus. (1992) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.