{"id":390187,"date":"2026-04-09T17:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390187\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T17:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:15:08","slug":"keanu-reeves-in-jonah-hills-hollywood-satire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/390187\/","title":{"rendered":"Keanu Reeves in Jonah Hill’s Hollywood Satire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIf Jonah Hill<\/a>\u2019s second narrative feature behind the camera serves any purpose at all, it\u2019s to make the spiraling self-indulgence of Noah Baumbach\u2019s\u00a0Jay Kelly<\/a>\u00a0seem like a Via Dolorosa of profound soul-searching.\u00a0Outcome<\/a>\u00a0watches another sad, rich movie star unravel \u2014 this time it\u2019s Keanu Reeves<\/a> as a beloved Hollywood figure emerging from a five-year career hiatus to be confronted with an extortion threat involving a compromising video from his past. Reeves\u2019 introspective humility comes close to poignancy at times, but everyone else is in a different movie \u2014 one that would likely never have been made without Hill\u2019s name on the script.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not my job to worry about Apple TV<\/a> and other streamers dumping millions into original features with the shelf life of scallops. But the assembly of talent here seems a criminal waste on material that\u2019s like a weak subplot on\u00a0The Studio<\/a>. Even the comfort-food pleasures of glossy entertainment are scarce in visuals awash with garish colors and uncomfortably tight closeups that leave you wondering what\u2019s up with one actor\u2019s ear, another\u2019s mouth or another\u2019s alien face work. What? It\u2019s not like I\u2019m naming names!<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tOutcome\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tDecidedly meager.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date: Friday, April 10 (Apple TV)
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Jonah Hill, Cameron Diaz, Matt Bomer, Susan Lucci, Laverne Cox, David Spade, Martin Scorsese, Atsuko Okatsuka, Roy Wood Jr., Welker White, Kaia Gerber, Ivy Wolk, Drew Barrymore
Director: Jonah Hill
Screenwriters: Jonah Hill, Ezra Woods
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated R,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 24 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tReeves plays Reef Hawk, which is a gay porn name if ever there was one. He was discovered as a kid in a TV song-and-dance contest and went on to become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, landing two Oscars before taking a break away from the spotlight. Thanks to his protective lifelong besties Kyle (Cameron Diaz<\/a>) and Xander (Matt Bomer<\/a>), and his fast-talking crisis management lawyer Ira Slitz (Hill), the public knows nothing about Reef\u2019s former heroin habit.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut when Ira gets word that a cancel-caliber video has surfaced and is in the hands of someone asking for a large sum to make it disappear, the lawyer sends Reef on a mission to ask forgiveness of everyone with reason to hate him and try to sniff out who has the tape. Reef can think of no one who would bear him ill will, but his sassy assistant Sammy (Ivy Wolk) weighs in with a very long list.<\/p>\n

\n\tIra delivers those instructions while taking a dump in a broad-comedy scene that goes on for an agonizingly long time \u2014 though it\u2019s nothing compared to him riffing on semen a little later. A nod or two to\u00a0Weekend at Bernie\u2019s\u00a0is a fair indication of what Hill and co-writer Ezra Woods find funny. Diaz\u2019s Kyle is possibly being ironic when she squeals, \u201cI love outlandish humor with my friends!\u201d But that doesn\u2019t make the jokes any sharper.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe recipients of Reef\u2019s apologies include his mother, Dinah (Susan Lucci<\/a>), who only agrees to listen if it can be filmed for an episode of\u00a0The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Dinah makes a more credible monster of self-absorption than Reef is accused of being before he got clean. It\u2019s Keanu, for God\u2019s sake! Can you really imagine him ever being an insensitive diva with anyone? But his ex-girlfriend, Savannah (Welker White), gives it to him straight: \u201cYou\u2019re not a good person, it was always about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven his nearest and dearest, Kyle and Xander, reveal during a sunset-dappled heart-to-heart on the deck of his beachfront Malibu bungalow that he hurt them too. But the script never digs deep enough into meaningful specifics to make it interesting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe best scenes are with Martin Scorsese<\/a> as Reef\u2019s childhood talent manager Richie \u201cRed\u201d Rodriguez, still conducting business out of an amusement arcade bowling alley and looking back with deep melancholy at all the kids who moved on to bigger management firms and promptly forgot him. A bookend scene toward the end in which Reef contacts him out of the blue is arguably the only genuinely affecting moment in the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the extortionist\u2019s threat grows more pressing, Ira assembles a crack team of specialists to help with damage control, even if it\u2019s unclear to Reef how their areas of expertise pertain to him. Virginia Allen-Green (Laverne Cox) is a renowned attorney for abused women; Reverend Londrus Carter (Roy Wood Jr.) a social justice warrior; and Unis Kim (Atsuko Okatsuka), an activist who crusades against the misrepresentation of Asians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNone of those characters has much of a purpose beyond providing more people for Hill to bounce his abrasive shtick off, and so the plot never gathers momentum.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are mildly amusing sight gags, like a Kevin Spacey portrait in the lobby of Ira\u2019s office building and a bumper sticker on his van that reads: \u201cHonk if you can separate the art from the artist.\u201d And Ira\u2019s hideous taste in ostentatiously labeled designer wear \u2014 the pastel blue Issey Miyake\u00a0Pliss\u00e9\u00a0outfit is a hate crime, the Vuitton sweatshirts a punishable offense \u2014\u00a0might have been good for a laugh if the performance hadn\u2019t been such a grating caricature.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough it\u2019s conceivable Hill has met some version of these people, there\u2019s no anchoring humanity to make them real, which undercuts both the comedy and the intended soulfulness. Sure, Reef discovers the rewards of genuine contrition, with John Prine\u2019s \u201cHow Lucky\u201d doing much of the heavy lifting. But since we never get to experience him at his worst, even secondhand, the slow-dawning epiphany rings hollow.<\/p>\n

\n\tSadly, there\u2019s no trace here of the authentic fondness for his characters that illuminated Hill\u2019s directing debut,\u00a0Mid90s<\/a>. Just a load of solipsistic L.A. brain rot trying to pass for satire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Jonah Hill\u2019s second narrative feature behind the camera serves any purpose at all, it\u2019s to make the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3288,31438,93,61,60,60031,6922,11723,128773,270,135183,135891],"class_list":{"0":"post-390187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-apple-tv","9":"tag-cameron-diaz","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-jonah-hill","14":"tag-keanu-reeves","15":"tag-martin-scorsese","16":"tag-matt-bomer","17":"tag-movies","18":"tag-outcome","19":"tag-susan-lucci"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}