Producer Art Linson has the power to produce a film dedicated to the proposition that producers are powerless. Pushed by Robert De Niro, Linson adapted his 2002 memoir “What Just Happened: Bitter Hollywood Tales From the Front Line” into a screenplay that’s more blithe than bitter. It’s all it-takes-one-to-know-one tattling that stars De Niro (“Wag the Dog”) as a Linson-like producer named Ben who endures the same emasculating indignities Linson recounts in his book, a follow-up to his 1995 “A Pound of Flesh: Perilous Tales of How to Produce Movies in Hollywood.” Linson’s producer credits include “Car Wash,” “This Boy’s Life,” “Heat,” “Fight Club” and “Into The Wild.” “What Just Happened?” opens with a test screening of Ben’s latest production, an arty, bloody film titled “Fiercely” starring Sean Penn. The red carpet at Cannes beckons, once that business about the dog dying in the last reel is fixed. Ben’s next project will star Bruce Willis, unwilling to shed flab or shave his bushy beard before shooting starts in five days. Ben also deals with two ex-wives and a teen daughter, the debris of his so-called family life. Barry Levinson (“Wag the Dog,” “Jimmy Hollywood”) directs with wit, extracting ripe turns from an in-the-know cast. Willis and Penn are regulars as self-spoofers, and Catherine Keener (“Simone,” “Full Frontal”) kills as Ben’s studio overseer. “I hope to get rid of the clichés of producers as big fat cigar chompers,” said the 66-year-old Linson, who copped to 175 pounds in a phone interview. “When Barry Levinson first read the script, he called me and said there’s nothing in this I haven’t experienced.” Linson insists his film, unlike his film-inside-his-film, tested well with audiences. He said he pre-screened it in “odd cities” such as Baltimore and Dallas. “It’s only people in Hollywood who think it’s too insider,” he notices. As a foray in occupational ethnography, it’s a boffo crowd-pleaser. Except for dog lovers. With Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Robin Wright Penn, Kristen Stewart and Michael Wincott. 118m. (Bill Stamets)
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