The Player (Special Edition) (New Line Platinum Series)

When callous movie studio executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) starts receiving anonymous death threats from a rejected screenwriter, his already shaky career begins to crumble. Finally, his desperation drives him to kill... but did he rub out the wrong writer?
Relentlessly hounded by a street-wise detective (Whoopi Goldberg), Griffin falls recklessly in love with the dead man's girlfriend (Greta Scacchi).

A wicked satirical fable about corporate backstabbing--and actual murder--in the movie business, The Player benefits from director Robert Altman's long and bitter experience working within, and without, the Hollywood studio system. Rising young executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is tormented by threats from an anonymous writer. The pressure and paranoia build until Griffin loses control one night and semi-accidentally kills screenwriter David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio), who may or may not be the source of the threats. From that point, Griffin's life and career begin to fall apart. In keeping with the ironic spirit of the film itself, Altman's scathingly funny attack on the moral bankruptcy of Hollywood was embraced by many of the same people it was intended to savage, and restored the director to commercial and critical favor. Michael Tolkin adapted the screenplay from his own novel, and the movie is studded with cameos by famous faces, many of whom appear as themselves. The digital video disc includes a commentary track with Altman and Tolkin, some deleted scenes, a documentary about Altman, and a key to help identify more than 50 of the picture's big-name cameos. --Jim Emerson