Robert Altman's The Player has the razorsharp quality of a grudge long nursed by lucid bitterness. Adapted by Michael Tolkin from his own book, the film plays like every screenwriter's revenge fantasy. With strychnine-laced, on-target humor, Altman's movie dissects Hollywood as if it were a corpse that hasn't quite died.

From the gloriously insolent eight-minute tracking shot that opens the movie, Altman established a sardonic, Multi-layered texture. Replete with inside jokes, the film is so sure handed and exquisitely paced that Altman's audacity takes the audience's breath away. Moving from icy satire to sleek thriller to offbeat love story to behind-the-scenes expose, Altman has made Sunset Boulevard's 92's offspring.

As the movie begins, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), the senior v.p. of production at a major studio, feels his security eroding. An ambitious parvenu named Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) has designs on Mill's job. Furthermore, an anonymous and extremely angry screenwriter keeps sending Mill a series of death-threats written on postcards. Unable to tell anyone what is happening, Mill takes matters into his own hands, killing a screenwriter and taking up with his girlfriend. However, the threats don't stop, and the movie is off and running.

Altman has assembled a dream cast to flesh out his ironic panoply. Besides Tim Robbins, the movie is blessed with the presence of Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Richard E. Grant (in a hilarious virtuoso turn as a writer) and Lyle Lovett (in his film debut).

Altman manages to draw amazing performances from his cast. Robbins undergoes a striking transformation. From the running-scared and pudgy-faced individual we encounter at the beginning of the film, Mill develops into a confident winner, a killer who is the ultimate Player. It's a great, charismatic performance which the gangly Robbins carries off with the assurance of a Gary Cooper.

In addition to Robbins' splendid portrayal as Mill, Altman scores a coup by getting nearly one hundred stars (with names like Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis, Cher, Nick Nolte and Angelica Huston) to act in his movie for scale pay (which was in turn donated to charity). It speaks well of Altman's prestige among actors.

Ultimately, the Player belongs to Altman. The touch of the master who made McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, M*A*S*H and last year's Vincent and Theo is felt everywhere. Altman delivers a film so packed with ironies and bitterly funny gags that our heads are reeling when we leave the theater. One can only wonder what sort of impact the movie is causing in Hollywood. The greatest irony is that The player is exactly the kind of incredible film that a producer like Griffin Mill would try to stifle.

The Player gives credence to Oscar Levant's epigram remark about Hollywood: "Scratch off the phony tinsel at the top, and you uncover the real tinsel at the heart."