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Game 6

2006, Movie, PG-13, 83 mins

Game 6: Review

GAME 6
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This tale about a successful playwright and a vitriolic theater critic begins on a strenuously schematic note, as Nicky Rogan (Michael Keaton) dashes from taxi to taxi, serendipitously crossing paths with the rest of the story's players, and descends into a tangle of heavily symbolic nonsense. The author of a string of popular hits, Nicky has poured his heart into a deeply personal play about his difficult relationship with his blue-collar father. Unfortunately, it debuts at Broadway's Music Box Theater the same day Nicky's beloved Red Sox are playing the Mets in game six of the World Series, October 25, 1986. And the conflict is far from his only problem: His wife (Catherine O'Hara), fed up with his womanizing, has been consulting with a "prominent divorce lawyer"; their rebellious college-age daughter, Laurel (Ari Graynor), is tired of being expected to take sides in their quarrels; and Nicky's aging father (Tom Aldredge) is in failing health. A brain parasite has robbed the play's star (Harris Yulin) of his memory, and Nicky's old friend, on-the-skids fellow playwright Elliott Litvak (Griffin Dunne), warns that notoriously vicious reviewer Steven Schwimmer (Robert Downey Jr.) is already preparing to eviscerate the show. While Nicky rushes around town, ostensibly trying to get a haircut but actually wasting time sitting in gridlocked cabs regaling the foreign-born drivers with tales of his stint as a hack, Elliott continues to pour poison into his ear about the reclusive Schwimmer, so widely despised in the theater community that he attends performances in disguise. Written by acclaimed novelist Don DeLillo and directed by Michael Hoffman, this navel-gazing fable is crammed with signs and portents, from Schwimmer's fashionable Zen fixation to a sidewalk explosion of asbestos-laden steam and the lady cabdriver (Lillias White) who includes folksy advice in the price of a ride. Though Keaton is convincing as a smarmy narcissist who secretly thinks he deserves to fail because writing plays isn't real work, he's also thoroughly unlikable — a problematic trait in a protagonist. Though presumably inspired by former New York Times critic Frank Rich, the so-called "Butcher of Broadway," Schwimmer is such a ridiculously contrived bundle of conceits — from his picturesquely squalid slum loft ("He doesn't even have a toilet!" declares an incredulous acquaintance) to his disfiguring facial birthmark — that Downey can hardly be blamed for failing to make him remotely credible. The high-powered and underused supporting cast includes Broadway veterans Roger Rees and Bebe Neuwirth, while former model Shalom Harlow puts in an appearance as an unemployed actress. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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