"Hollywood Ending"

There's still a certain amount of prestige associated with an Allen picture, which is why it's frustrating to see him cast wonderful comic actors (some of whom don't seem to get much work elsewhere) only to give them very little to do. Leoni has the looks of a '30s wisecracker and the timing of a safecracker; she was always a joy to watch in her ill-fated sitcom of a few years back, "The Naked Truth." Here she's nothing but a pretty reflector for Allen's neuroses (shouldn't he have trademarked that word by now, like Sominex or Geritol?).

Ellie used to be a regular gal when she was married to him; now she's an assertive Hollywood player, but one who hasn't completely lost her whimsical side. (We know this because she wears suits and shirts with impractically floppy sleeves.) Leoni never plays dumb -- when I'm watching her, even in a slow-moving vehicle like "Hollywood Ending," she always convinces me that of course legginess and braininess are exactly the same thing. Part of the fun of watching her is coming to your senses afterward, realizing you've been dazzled and bamboozled -- that's a component of her talent. But as Allen has written it, the role holds very little for her. And in the one scene where she and Allen kiss, she can barely hide what can only be described as restrained revulsion; she looks anxious to get away, like the pussycat beauty in the Pépé Le Pew cartoons.

Other actors float through the ether of "Hollywood Ending" as if they don't know where they are. George Hamilton's mere presence is funny: He haunts the movie as one of the Hollywood hotshots with an unspecified but very important job, dandling a golf club in his hand in every scene. It would be fine for Allen to use Hamilton as a jokey (and very tan) curlicue if he hadn't so clearly anointed himself emperor of the movie, but as it is Hamilton seems to have been cast and then forgotten. Barney Cheng, as a Chinese translator who helps Allen fool his cast and crew into thinking he can actually see, is wonderfully funny -- perhaps too funny. He gets the heave-ho after a few brief scenes.

And worst of all, "Hollywood Ending" just isn't very funny. The best joke is the most self-evident one: When Waxman finally regains his eyesight, he sits down in a screening room to watch the movie he made without being able to actually see the action. Peering through his fingers, he stammers, "This looks like the work of a blind man."

Unfortunately, "Hollywood Ending," which was shot by Wedigo von Schultzendorff, doesn't look so good either. It has a vaguely low-budget sheen, as if Allen were striving to give it more emotional authenticity, or, maybe, to make us forget that he's a big-time director.

The odd thing is, he wants us to forget how big he is but also to remember constantly, and he can't have it both ways. Positing himself as an anxiety-ridden babe magnet who -- poor thing! -- couldn't direct his way out of a paper bag is about the last thing a filmmaker like Allen should do to win favor with his audience. The ending of "Hollywood Ending" isn't much of an ending, either; it's more like the slow, saggy sigh of an expired whoopee cushion. And even then, Allen makes it look like work. For all his smarts, he still hasn't figured out how to poop out with a bang.

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