The Hollywood Sign
The Hollywood Sign
| 17 September 2002 (USA)
The Hollywood Sign Trailers

Three washed-up actors must deliver the most convincing performances of their lives as part of a dangerous plot designed to finance their triumphant comeback.

Reviews
vchimpanzee

At the movie's start, Kage is playing a cop in a movie and messing up take after take after take. Tom is his partner, and during a break in filming, his girlfriend Paula says she has written a movie script called 'The Hollywood Sign', though she has been told to revise the ending.Seven years later, Tom can't get work as an actor and he is having to take a real job. At the hotel he moves into, he meets Kage and discovers Kage is in the same situation and living there too. Later in the movie, we see just why these two actors are washed up--they haven't got it any more (but the results are hilarious!). Tom has revised Paula's script, but the process of making the movie gets put on hold for a while.At a funeral, the two meet Floyd, another has-been actor who is still able to make a good living installing burglar alarms. If needed, he could also install bugs and other surveillance equipment.The three actors go to the movie's title landmark and discover a body. What they decide to do about the body, and about finding out how it got there, results in quite a few laughs.Rod Steiger gave this movie's outstanding performance, especially toward the end, but Tom Berenger and Burt Reynolds both did fine jobs as well. Reynolds leaned more toward comedy and did quite well. I'm not saying it was one of his best performances, but it was enjoyable.Jacqueline Kim made a confident and intelligent Paula. And she looked good too--especially wearing little or no clothing.The bumbling gangsters connected in some way with the body were funny and not that threatening. Rodney, one of Floyd's clients, was the head gangster and halfway intelligent, while Muscle seemed to be just that. Steve seemed more street-smart. Charlie, the clumsy sidekick to the veteran actors, also provided comedy relief.The ending was very strange but entertaining.I thought this was worth seeing.

... View More
Dalazen_Junior

This light-hearted comedy was a great surprise for me, I didn't expect much from The Hollywood Sign since it was a direct-to-video movie but after finishing it, I was impressed not only by the quality of the film, but also for the brilliant performances from the three leads.Granted is not a mainstream movie, but for what it is - a low budget comedy - The Hollywood Sign was entertaining and quite poignant at times. I personally felt that the three main actors had a nice time working together (something that a lot of people who watched it noticed too) and that they did their best with the material handed.Burt Reynolds, Tom Berenger and Rod Steiger have personal connection and knowledge about the main theme of the story - about being an actor and getting old in a place where legends are built with the same speed they are destroyed.All of them were at the top of the world during a certain period, especially Burt Reynolds, the box-office king of the seventies, and they had to face hard times afterwards. Reynolds has the most emotional and beautiful scene, in which he, with tears in his eyes, watches an old western he made.Beautiful moment and homage to Burt,a really talented, charming, wonderful and unfortunately underestimated actor of his time. I wonder if people in Hollywood will one day give Burt Reynolds the respect and admiration he deserves, or if they are only going to give credits when it's too late, as in the case of the outstanding and deceased Rod Steiger.

... View More
gazineo-1

Silly comedy in which three decadent actors team up in a ridiculous farse to catch the money stolen from one cassino of Las Vegas. Lame story, with a direction which tries all the time to be clever but is just dissapointing. Anyway, the three leads (Berenguer, Reynolds and Steiger) are good and seems to be having a good time just for the fact they are working together.I give this a 4 (four).

... View More
George Parker

"The Hollywood Sign" is all about a trio of washed up, has-been movie actors (Berenger, Reynolds, Steiger) who decide to turn fiction into reality by using a movie screenplay as the blueprint for a Vegas casino ripoff (sorta). Everyone in this unfortunate flick seems to be waiting for the other cue to drop. Performances are hickory; the screenplay is clumsy; timing is waaay off; and God knows where the director was during the filming. There is one poignant moment when Reynolds watches himself in an old western and a few funny moments where the trio, playing like detectives, interview some hoods. Otherwise the film is a waste of talent and a waste of time. (D)

... View More