Showboy (2002)

73% of critics liked it
(15 reviews)
33% of users liked it
(721 ratings)

Written and directed by co-stars Lindy Heymann and Christian Taylor, Showboy is a comedic mockumentary about a Hollywood writer trying to make it onto the Las Vegas stage. Real-life British filmmaker Heymann takes her documentary crew into Southern California to report on Britons working in… More Written and directed by co-stars Lindy Heymann and Christian Taylor, Showboy is a comedic mockumentary about a Hollywood writer trying to make it onto the Las Vegas stage. Real-life British filmmaker Heymann takes her documentary crew into Southern California to report on Britons working in Hollywood. She overhears Taylor (a real writer and producer for the HBO series Six Feet Under) getting fired by executive producer Alan Ball. The documentary crew then follows Taylor to Las Vegas, where he proceeds to follow his dreams of making it as a star under the guise of doing research for a movie script. He rooms with veteran chorus member Erich Miller (then the star of the Vegas show Jubilee) and undergoes a series of dance lessons, auditions, and other humiliations. Features cameo appearances by Adrian Armas, Siegfried and Roy, and Whoopi Goldberg. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 30 min.
Directed By: Aaron Porter, Christi Taylor
Genres: Comedy

In Theaters: Jun 22, 2002 Wide
On DVD: Aug 17, 2004
Studio: Regent Releasing

Critic Reviews

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
This would-be satire isn't funny enough to be entertaining, nor is it clever enough to fool us.
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
Slyly amusing yet poignant.
Charles Ealy, Dallas Morning News
Showboy is enjoyable if you're comfortable with the mix of fact and fiction and don't care what's true and what's not.
Stephen Holden, New York Times
A clever hide-and-seek game of reality versus fiction that reveals itself as not the movie you thought it was when the final credits roll.
Lou Lumenick, New York Post
A no-budget vanity production that almost instantly wears out its welcome.
Akiva Gottlieb, Village Voice
An ill-conceived, often implausible hybrid of fact and fiction.
Jay Antani, Los Angeles Alternative
a legitimately smart and appealing work
David Foucher, EDGE Boston
The most entertaining part of Christian Taylor's "Showboy" is deciphering fact from fiction... and that's not a compliment.
David Noh, Film Journal International
Silly only begins to describe this, but along the way, bitter truths are revealed and some real laughs delivered.
Ryan Cracknell, Movie Views
Made all the more fascinating by keeping a small and twisted foot in a bizarre reality befitting the glitz and glamour of show business.
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
plays for laughs extremely well, though it's all dry as the Las Vegas air
Stina Chyn, Film Threat
Witty, touching, and slightly wacky.
Chuck Wilson, L.A. Weekly
To their credit, the filmmakers don't repair their hero's aching heart, but they do grant him a brief moment in the Vegas spotlight, surely all that any chorus boy (or girl) could ask.
Ken Fox, TV Guide's Movie Guide
Taylor, while perhaps a little small to become a real Vegas showboy, makes for a very charismatic hero, while Joaquin Baca-Asay's cinematography captures all the glitz and slightly tawdry glamour of the Vegas strip.

Read all 14 critic reviews

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Daniel P

A young British documentarian, Lindy Heymann, is given the assignment of finding a successful young British subject living in the US and making a career in show-business. She chooses as her subject Christian Taylor, a writer on the HBO series Six Feet Under. Just as she's about… More
A young British documentarian, Lindy Heymann, is given the assignment of finding a successful young British subject living in the US and making a career in show-business. She chooses as her subject Christian Taylor, a writer on the HBO series Six Feet Under. Just as she's about to film her final interview with him, she accidentally overhears him get fired by the shows creator, Alan Ball. Christian flees to Las Vegas, and Lindy follows. When she catches up with him, Christian, who does not realise she knows he was fired, claims he is doing research for a new script he is writing - an action thriller set in Vegas. <p>What follows is a brilliantly clever mockumentary, as Lindy pursues Christian (at first reluctantly) as he tries out for auditions as a dancer, in what he claims is part of his research for his script. The boundaries of truth and fiction blur as Christian soon becomes obsessed with the audition process and his research becomes ever more "method". <p>This is a very touching film. Christian Taylor (who really was a writer on Six Feet Under - though everything else is fictitious) is a brilliant presence and seems to have a natural talent; I frequently forgot that this was a mockumentary and not a documentary. The film raises questions about deception, ambition, and identity. It's also quietly heartbreaking - a scene where Christian discloses his awful feeling of loneliness, and another where he has an emotional meltdown in a dance class, are powerful, and the film is presented very realistically and without winking to the audience. <p>A nice surprise to a film I've put off watching for a long time. And I've just read it won Directorial Debut at the British Independent Awards..

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