Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins
Directed by Allen Coulter
Rated R

Before there was Christopher Reeve there was George Reeves, a man troubled by the fact that he would only ever be a B-actor, and only ever be remembered as the 1950s television version of ’The Man of Steel.’ Shockingly, before the seventh season of filming began on ’Adventures of Superman’ Reeves was pronounced dead’a suicide. But, no finger prints were ever found on the gun.

Director Allen Coulter’s Hollywoodland uses this ambiguous suicide as a launching pad for his murder mystery, in which a private eye named Louis Simo (Brody) tries to find out who shot Reeves (Affleck). There are three possibilities: a fianc’ he wouldn’t marry, a powerful husband who found out Reeves was sleeping with his wife or Reeves himself.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t answer any of the questions it asks, and it feels as ambiguous as the death of Reeves itself. The pacing is steady and bland, but for a detective movie I’d expect it to be gripping, exciting or even intriguing. It isn’t until the end that things even begin to get a little stimulating; unfortunately it’s too little, too late.

And while Hollywoodland may look like Chinatown, and Brody’s character may be Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes, it is far from being as good. It’s more like a Chinatown wannabe with none of the edge or grit.

However, Affleck and Brody give superb performances. There’s a scene in which Reeves is making a morning appearance as Superman, just a little something for extra money. He doesn’t take it too seriously; I mean he is a guy in tights. He’s drinking behind the set, and talking to a couple of guys, when it’s his cue to bust through a wooden fort and save the day.

After Superman takes care of the bad guys a kid comes up to him with a gun and asks if he can shoot him to watch the bullet bounce off, only it looks like it may be a real gun. Affleck is amazing in this scene as Reeves comes to realize that while his job as Superman may just be a job, and a joke, it’s real to all the kids of America who look up to him.

Another excellent scene, that showcases Brody’s talent, involves Simo getting his face smashed in by a metal chain; this is one of the only real gripping moments in the movie, along with the next day when he figures out who one of the guys was that roughed him up, paying him a little visit. The mannerisms Brody gives really add to the level of believability that Simo really got his face shattered.

But those two scenes are highlights in an otherwise uninteresting film. It seems as though Hollywoodland may be as forgotten to my generation (Generation Y) as ’Adventures of Superman’ is.