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Standing in for Network's Faye Dunaway as the evil yet sexy TV programming chief is the bodacious Eva Mendes as Katy, newly arrived at the American Broadcasting Network with the assignment to save its prime-time schedule. After listening to lots of failed pitches for reality shows -- she says that if people hate what's on TV then they should see what doesn't get on TV -- she dreams up a new kind of game show: live Russian roulette. Six players, one bullet, six pulls of the trigger.
Cue the outrage from the network's lawyers and pundits who lead a few heated sidebar discussions about constitutional law. Of course, Katy has no time for that because her auditions are already underway. When a first round yields nothing more than wannabe suicides, she ups the prize money to attract people who are looking to improve their lives, whether it's getting out of the ghetto, saving the family farm, or simply becoming famous. She wants contestants America can relate to. She even produces 'up close and personal' segments to get fans behind their favorites. The survivors will get five million dollars. The dead contestant will get nothing but hot lead.
In what seems to be only a matter of a few days, the show, unimaginatively called Live! (I would have called it Splatter!), is ready to air, and damn if it isn't pretty exciting, although the movie never quite explains how the producers would fill the time if the first contestant to pull the trigger got the bullet. Perhaps Donny Osmond could come on and dance the cha-cha-cha for a while.
Ultimately, there's not much new here. We already know that TV executives are overpaid morons, that reality TV is clearly heading down a path that will eventually lead to on-screen deaths, and that broadcast networks are desperate to do anything to save themselves before we all turn to our Internet screens full-time. Mendes plows through the movie with frenetic energy, but she's no Faye Dunaway; she seems simply more manic than anything else.
Live! has its moments, but you're better served by watching Network again.
But there's always time for lounging.
