Everyone else here sums up the plot, so I'll try to sum up the appeals...

It's as sophisticated as you could want it to be, but also funny and with plenty of celebrity cameos for casual fun. Granted, though, it IS especially SMART humor, but with its share of laugh-out-loud moments, if you're looking for those. (John Cusack and Burt Reynolds each deliver among the most hilarious cameos, and Whoopi Goldberg has the most hilarious "real" part.)

It'll play well to watch once, or live up to endless repeated viewings, if you like to take in a movie's layers. It can be a great thriller at face value, or self-conscious and aware to a staggering depth of complexity.

It's easy on the eyes and frequently sexy, and yet the filmwork and craftsmanship is virtually flawless. The whole production (and soundtrack) is seamless perfection, living up to both Hollywood's "plastic" standards but also the most critical devote' of film.

All the performances are slickly believable, and Tim Robbins' in particular is downright sublime. Peter Gallagher is also an underrated talent here - the power struggle between their characters and how it plays out is among the most brilliant dimensions of the picture.

As a mystery and murder drama, it'll keep you guessing but satisfy you in the end. Despite Altman's neat trick of never explicitly solving the mystery for you, but giving you the clues to figure it out for yourself. (By the end of the picture, the mystery itself has become secondary to the solution, so he can leave it be for YOU to solve.)

But mostly, this picture pulls off the most rare of film accomplishments, a Hollywood picture through-and-through, with all the niceties we expect from mainstream films (sex, violence, suspense, humor, love, etc.), and yet an undeniable and profound work of art.

Film and series about Hollywood become ever more the rage, but this historic picture really set the bar. The Player will be a wild ride for anyone keen on a good movie for its own sake, but absolutely irreplacable for anyone intrigued with Hollywood and its own market-driven hypocrisy.

So it's a rock-solid movie for an average moviegoer, but as artful, dark, and cynical as a more demanding viewer could hope for.

The first time I saw this film I was in shock. Was it for real? Was it a spoof? Of course it was! It was one of the most enjoyable films I've seen in a long, long time. The casting was superb. Everyone was totally believable. Vincent D'Onofrio is my favorite actor. He is fantastic in every role he plays. Tim Robbins was wonderful. I kept saying to myself: Has this actually happened out there? Well, of course it has. But Hollywood is a world unto it's own and many souls are spared their bad deeds. I watch this film at least four times a year. It rocks.

On the whole, Altman's best film, and that's really saying something. Along with Goodfellas, one of the best films of the 90's -- American or otherwise. Funny, incisive, byzantine and brilliant.

Rarely does a Hollywood feature film effectively go behind the lens -- while at least a couple European films spring to mind: Day for Night (Truffaut) and The State of Things (Wenders). Altman's approach is different than those mentioned above by going through the Lens, AND into the lives of those behind the lens.

The multi-layered story line has been discussed elsewhere in these reviews. What intrigued me was the commentary by director Robert Altman and screenwriter Michael Tolkin. This juicy conversation illuminates how this movie satire came to "light" and why it flies below the conventional Hollywood radar that consistently underestimates the intelligence of critical cinema viewers.

My favorite line from the commentary was Altman's quip that he could have titled this piece anything -- and he had been toying with the idea of calling it "The Republican", saying that it exemplifies a class of people in which there exists an absence of guilt. This viewpoint brings another layer of meaning to the closing scene, in which Griffin as the new studio head, peremptorily & prematurely pats his progeny.

Only Robert Altman could make a movie like this. With its huge, sprawling cast of talented actors and famous people dropping by for cameos, Altman has created one of the best Hollywood satires ever made. I think the only other movies gunning for this title would be "The Day of the Locust" and Steve Martin's "Bowfinger."

Recent Academy Award winner Tim Robbins plays a sleazy movie exec who deals with the writing talent. A bunch of mysterious and threatening postcards show up at Robbins's office, and a tense thriller unfolds. Interspersed between the classic thriller elements, Altman stuffs a making-the-movie subplot in there which pokes fun at Hollywood producers and actors, as well as developing a convincing and warm love story. How does he do it? He's Robert Altman, for Christ's sakes. And he does it seamlessly - by the time the movie is over, you're wishing it had just begun.

Altman uses text messages to get points across to the viewer, and the background becomes almost as important and pertinent to the plot as the physical action unfolding before you. Perhaps this is a comment on our celluloid-dampened minds and our inability to see, as it were, the "writing on the wall." For if the characters in this film stopped for a moment and saw where they were, what they were doing, and why, perhaps none of those people would be in trouble. It's a nice jab at our MTV attention spans, and hilarious when foreign films are mentioned Hollywood Types, who immediately clam up and say, "Haven't seen it."

Good times, indeed. You'll have tons of fun just pointing out the celebrity cameos in "The Player." Altman probably did this to give the audience the same awe-struck sensation they would get if they were amongst those power players. You find yourself pointing at the screen and saying, "Hey, that's Susan Sarandon!" or "That's Jack Lemmon playing the piano there!"

So not only is "The Player" an excellent and biting comedy, it's a convincing thriller as well. And nobody could've guessed the ending, which leaves you ... well ... it's difficult to describe how "The Player" ends without giving too much away. So rent it, buy it, spin it on your finger and give props to one of the greatest living American directors.