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An uncivil "Action"
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Sept. 13, 1999 |
So, say you're one of these Hollywood hotshots -- OK, say
you're Joel Silver, the notoriously flamboyant producer of
the "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon" movies. There are two
ways you can deal with the people who blame you for every
act of violence committed in America. You can start making
nice family pictures, or you can say, "Fuck you." With
"Action," the raunchy, hilarious new Fox sitcom Silver
co-produced with Chris Thompson ("The Larry Sanders Show," "The Naked Truth"), Silver says, "Fuck you" a lot. Actually,
his cocky, abrasive alter ego, action flick producer Peter Dragon
(a perfectly cast Jay Mohr), says it for him -- six times
before the opening credits alone. The F-word is bleeped out,
because this is broadcast TV (even if it's Fox). But you
don't have to be a lip-reader to figure out the gist of
Dragon's series-opening tirade, directed at a studio
commissary worker who protests when Dragon steals his
"employee of the month" parking space.
Action
Joyce Millman Joyce Millman's column appears every other Monday in Salon Arts & Entertainment. Barks Dragon, reluctantly removing the cell phone from his ear as he strides across the lot to confront the poor nobody, "While you've admirably restrained yourself from peeing in the Cobb salad over the years, I've made 10 motion pictures that have earned this studio a billion dollars. Unfortunately for you, I am the employee of the [bleeping] century!" You could really hate Peter Dragon, with his hipster suits and his arrogant strut and his bully-boy eyes, if Mohr ("Go," "Jerry Maguire") wasn't such a thoroughly likable bastard. And if Mohr didn't betray a glimmer of insecurity in those bully's eyes. And if the torrents of sarcastic abuse that Dragon spews at everyone weren't so viciously funny. And if Dragon wasn't surrounded by big shots and hustlers even more poisonously cynical and ethically bankrupt than he is. "Nice guys finish last," goes the show's Green Day theme song, and at first you think, sure, that's gotta be Dragon's motto. But by the end of the first episode, after Dragon reveals a tiny possibility of humanity, you realize that Dragon really may not be rotten enough to finish first. He's only a brat, not Satan. "Action" was created in the paranoia-soaked, entertainment biz image of "The Larry Sanders Show" (Thompson and Silver originally took this show to HBO, but negotiations fell apart), and it's a little disorienting to see its bawdy humor and niche-y premise on a non-cable network. "Action" still has a few bugs to work out, judging from the first episode -- the cute musical commentary has to go, and Dragon and his muse, hooker Wendy Ward (Illeana Douglas), meet in disappointingly farcical sitcom fashion. But "Action" is still the most original new sitcom of the season. Nasty, fun and pop-culturally incisive, it's Fox's best live-action comedy in way too many years. And, yes, I realize that "incisive" may not have been the word that sprang to mind when you read the aforementioned descriptions of dirty dialogue and pee jokes. But "Action" is broadcast TV's first satire in a long time that contains, you know, actual satire. Take Thompson's "Naked Truth," about a National Enquirer-type tabloid, for instance. It never went after tabloid culture or celebrity vanity as hard as it should have, and when Thompson left after one season and the show moved from ABC to NBC, the thing collapsed into a cookie-cutter workplace comedy. And Al Franken's recent NBC flop, "Lateline," attempted a TV news parody, but was merely a toothless embarrassment. But "Action" (the pilot, anyway) takes its shots at Hollywood
without fear and without obvious network interference (well,
except for the bleeps). Dragon's projects are deliriously
awful; they're parodies of the type of action movies Silver
makes (and the type the clean- There are references (none of them flattering) to big stars; Keanu Reeves (fresh from the Silver-produced "The Matrix") shows up in a cameo, getting a hand job from Wendy at a movie premiere. There's a bald, intimidating power player who bears a strong resemblance from the neck up to former Fox chairman Barry Diller (from the waist down, this character is known as "Anaconda" -- in "Action," big penises equal big power). In the pilot's most memorable scene, Dragon listens incredulously while a squirrelly talent agent pitches him the services of O.J. Simpson, making the argument that "little children in Calcutta know his face ... the name is more recognizable than 'Tom Hanks.'" Replies Dragon, "OK, but to be fair, Tom Hanks refuses to go that extra mile and hack his wife to death!" The O.J. scene, borderline tasteless but gaspingly funny, could serve as new Fox Entertainment president -- and former "South Park"-touting Comedy Central chief -- Doug Herzog's calling card. But that scene, in which Dragon turns Simpson's agent down, also suggests that the producer has a drop of a conscience -- and in Hollywood, that makes him the equivalent of Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." It also makes him dangerously vulnerable and, maybe, worth caring about. Dragon definitely is a soft touch; he employs his bleary Uncle Lonnie (Buddy Hackett, of course) as his security guard and chauffeur, and you can almost see the top layer of his tough-guy armor melt away when he learns that Wendy is a former hugely popular child star who lost everything to cocaine and booze. Now clean, she considers being a prostitute to the stars something of a comeback. Because Wendy makes like a good sport to help avert a public
relations disaster at the Hollywood premiere of "Slow
Torture," and because she's not afraid to confirm Dragon's
suspicion that the movie stinks, he makes her his unofficial
script reader and advisor. There's a sparky chemistry
between Mohr's Peter Dragon and Douglas' Wendy; she's just the
sort of clear-eyed, maternal protector this self-absorbed
lost boy needs to help him find his way through Neverland.
He doesn't want to grow up. But he will.
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