Bowfinger

***Bowfinger*** is a 1999 American satirical comedy film. It was directed by Frank Oz and stars Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy and Robert Downey Jr.

## Synopsis

When a desperate movie producer fails to get a major star for his bargain basement film, he decides to shoot the film secretly around him.

## Plot

Z-grade film producer Bobby Bowfinger has saved up to direct a movie for his entire life — he now has $2,184 to pay for production costs. He has a script ("*Chubby Rain*") penned by an accountant, Afrim, and a camera operator, Dave, with access to studio-owned equipment. Bowfinger then lines up several actors who are hungry for work, along with a crowd of undocumented Mexican immigrants for a camera crew; the only other thing he needs is access to a studio in order to distribute his masterwork.

He extracts a promise from a film studio executive, Jerry Renfro, that the executive will distribute the film if it includes currently-hot action star Kit Ramsey. Ramsey — a rather pompous, neurotic, and paranoid actor — refuses, so Bowfinger constructs a plan to covertly film all of Ramsey's scenes without his knowledge. The actors, told that Ramsey is method acting and will not be interacting with them outside of their scenes, walk up to Ramsey in public and recite their lines while hidden cameras catch Ramsey's confused reactions.

The plan goes well at first: Ramsey (who is a member of a Scientology-like organization called MindHead) swallows the movie's alien invasionpremise and believes he is genuinely being stalked by aliens, resulting in an exceptionally genuine and intense performance. However, the strain on his already-precarious mental state leads him to go into hiding in order to maintain his sanity. This puts a hold on the film production.

Bowfinger resorts to hiring a Ramsey lookalike named Jiff. Jiff is kind, amiable and rather clueless. He even runs through a gauntlet of "stunt drivers" racing along a major freeway when asked. During a chat with the other cast members, Jiff mentions that he is Kit Ramsey's brother, explaining the likeness. Using this new knowledge, Bowfinger has Jiff find out Kit Ramsey's movements and the final scene to the film is readied for shooting.

The final scene is at an observatory. Though otherwise pleased with Ramsey's unscripted dialogue, Bowfinger considers his character's final line "Gotcha suckers!" to be the key moment of the film, and directs one of the actors to guide Ramsey through the scene under the guise of showing him how to get rid of the aliens. During the filming, Ramsey becomes terrified and struggles to deliver the final line. At this point, Ramsey's mentor at MindHead, Terry Stricter, has discovered evidence that Kit's 'aliens' may not be just in his head. MindHead officials track Bowfinger to the observatory, and shut down production.

Bowfinger's camera crew show him B-roll footage of Ramsey they were filming off-set, just in case they saw anything they could use. The footage shows Ramsey donning a paper bag over his head and exposing himself to an amused Laker Girl Cheerleading Squad. Bowfinger uses the footage as blackmail in his negotiations with MindHead to use Ramsey in the film. MindHead advises the star to finish the project. Bowfinger finally gets to sit at the premiere of a film he himself directed, and is awed. Following the arguable success of the film, Bowfinger receives a rare Fed-Exenvelope—an offer to film a martial arts film called "*Fake Purse Ninjas*" starring Bowfinger and Jiff Ramsey.