The reason this all works is because Poe makes it obvious that this is, after all, a movie--that is, another piece of show business that's being used to show how the business itself is so cut-throat it makes killers of those scrambling within it for placement. There IS some humor here, the laugh-out loud kind, and there is the overall premise which is cleverly done, albeit in a somewhat cartoonish way. But the intensity of most of the dialogue more than makes up for whatever cartoonish elements may exist.

The cast here is a good one--and all of them (aside from the "impresario") are actors. Barbara Hershey is the least cartoonish of the characters, the mob boss' ex. John Leguizamo is her lover. Lisa Marie is another divorcee, also with a young kid. Debi Mazar, who gives the most unfortunately cliched monologue in the film, is the most desperate of the actors. Clarence Williams III--who cannot give a bad performance if he tries--HAS to play Teach, in American Buffalo, the mob boss' next show. And Harry Hamlin is the lowlife who is sure HE will play Teach. Also on hand are Mike Starr, Justin Theroux and Ron Perlman who do their New York characters proud--as does the rest of the cast--with real panache.

Poe is also poking fun here at David Mamet; all his characters have the same monosyllabic names that Mamet favors in his play American Buffalo which is the actors' focal point. So here we have Klench, Zip, Flav, Simone, Myrna (I lied; the women have two-syllable names), and Crush.

This is not a great film, but an amusing one, especially, maybe, for actors struggling to make it big in the Big Apple.