Joey Breaker

Life is hard and hectic at the Morgan Creative Agency. In the New York glittering world of entertainment there is a war to the knife to keep finding new talents and malle the big deal. Joey Breaker is a self-centred talent spotter wrapped up in his career and without scruples when it comes to reaching the top. One day Joey's older colleague Esthelasks him to come with her to deliver food to Alfred, who is infected with AIDS. For Joey this is like a visit to another world and it makes him reconsider things.

COMMENTARY
Hollywood on Hollywood. The self-righteousness and navel-gazing of the film industry have also resulted in a number of excellent films. From Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard by way of Blake Edwards' underestimated S.O.B. to Robert Altman's The Player. After the examining portrayal of actors, directors, scriptwriters and producers, the agents are next in line: the agents who represent actors, stitch together settlements for scriptwriters, force up prices and are on the phone 18 hours a day.
Joey Brealler is a romantic (and mildly moralising) portrayal of the life and times of a New York agent. The director Steven Starr who makes his debut with this film has worked as an agent himself for ten years at the William Morris Agency in New York. One of Starr's real life clients were ironically enough Tim Robbins, who starred in The Player. There are many parallels between The Player and Joey Brea/ler. The dialogue is cynical and razor sharp, but laced with so many trade terms that it is sometimes hard to understand.
In the leading part as the espresso-jittery agent Joey Breaker we see the excellent Richard Edson, who we know from earlier films such as Stranger Than Paradise, Good Morning, Vietnam, Platoon and not to mention Vito, the pizza baking brother, in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. The girl who finally causes the thick-skinned Joey Breaker's cynical, slightly homophobic and sexist attitudes to crumble, is played by the actress Cedella Marley who is making her debut with this film. She is the eldest daughter of Bob Marley and a member of liggy Marley & The Melody Makers.
The director Steven Starr seems to be a big friend of Jamaica. Several key-scenes of the film take place in a Jamaican restaurant in New York. Starr has also, together with Rita Marley, worked as an executive producer on a dramatization of the life of Bob Marley. The soundtrack of Joey Breaker is dominated by Bob Marley's songs. The film begins with Coming In From The Cold and ends with Satisfy My Soul, a choice of songs that reflects Joey Breaker's transformation throughout the film.
The most successful scenes in the movie at Joey Breaker's office in New York are otherwise the least romantic ones. The game between Joey Breaker and his assistant Hoffman (Wiley McCall, the spineless student in The Scent of a Woman) results in some crucial advice on how to make it as a scriptwriter or actor in America:
1. You don't stand a chance without an agent.
2. You're out of your mind if you take your agent's advice. ':'
Jan Gradvall

Medverkande
Richard Edson, Cedella Marley: Producent
Steven Starr, Amos Poe: Manus
Steven Starr: Foto
Joe DeSalvo: Musik
Paul Aston: Talat språk
English