Mistress

Starring: Robert De Niro

Directed by: Barry Primus

RS: Not Rated

1991 Comedy

Robert Altman's devastating Hollywood satire The Player casts a giant shadow over this half-pint imitation, directed and co-written by Barry Primus. The plot concerns Marvin Landisman (a stolid Robert Wuhl), a has-been who's stuck directing educational videos. He's about to chuck everything for a teaching job in New York when a fringe producer, Jack Roth (Martin Landau in fine form), dusts off one of his moldy scripts.

Roth aims to finance the picture -- about an artist who commits suicide -- through three outsiders who all want their mistresses in the movie. Since Robert De Niro, Danny Aiello and Eli Wallach play the money men, you'd expect big laughs. But only De Niro delivers the goods. Among the kept women, Sheryl Lee Ralph has a stronger role than Jean Smart and Tuesday Knight, and she makes the most of it. Sadly, the film is so blandly conceived and executed that it's hard to care whether Landisman will compromise his art to make his script more commercial. Christopher Walken contributes a sharp cameo as a manic-depressive actor. But he's on the periphery, where most of the real action is happening. Seeing Mistress is like getting a bad table at the in Hollywood restaurant. You're eavesdropping on all the dull conversations.

PETER TRAVERS
RS 637