TV: Satirical knife in the back for Tinseltown

By FIONA RAE

It was a good idea at the time: a small, cutting-edge HBO satire that, like Sex and the City, would have grown through word of mouth and critical acclaim.

But ironically, Action (TV3, 10 pm), a parody of Hollywood movie executives, lasted only 13 episodes, a victim of industry heavy-hitters pushing it over to network channel Fox, which promptly lined it up against the might of Friends, Frasier and ER.

HBO had approached Joel Silver (Lethal Weapon, The Matrix) and he brought in former Larry Sanders' producer Chris Thompson. But ultimately they couldn't make a deal with HBO.

"All of a sudden it isn't just a little HBO production," said Thompson, "you've got a lot of big dogs to feed, and HBO wasn't willing to shovel enough meat our way."

What a shame. What it lacks in Larry Sanders-style subtlety, Action makes up for with Jay Mohr's fantastic scenery-chewing.

From the first scenes of the first episode his character, Peter Dragon, was established as an utter bastard, verbally abusing an employee of the month and taking his parking space.

The series is a joke in itself: that Hollywood doesn't mind what you say about it, as long as you're saying something.

It has been described as "The Player on speed," but The Player was altogether more menacing.

Action cheerily describes a Hollywood where there is no morality, where you are only as good as your last picture, where pond scum always rises. And where the maitre d' at the trendiest restaurant has more power than you.

Apparently, there are hatchet jobs galore and more inside jokes than you can poke a development deal at, but we wouldn't know.

Cutest are the film references, including last week's Jerry Maguire-style team-builder between Dragon and a writer that stopped just short of "Show me the money!" It should be noted here that Mohr was the obnoxious agent in Jerry Maguire.

Later it was "You complete me,", as Dragon tried to persuade prostitute Wendy Ward (Illeana Douglas) to come and work for him.

She countered with, "I hate it when people try to pass off movie dialogue and use it in real conver-sation."

"Frankly, Wendy, I don't give a damn," he replied.

"You could be a prostitute and humiliate yourself as a job or you could work as a motion picture executive and humiliate yourself as a career."

Occasionally, Action is just too obvious, and this is its downfall.

At the restaurant, producer Joel Silver has taken Dragon's table.

"Why is that fat hack at my table?" asks Dragon.

"The Maaaatrix, it did very well," replies the supercilious maitre d'.

"He also made Xanadu," mumbles Dragon under his breath.

Last week we were left with Dragon having employed ex-child-star-turned-prostitute Wendy and her pimp, who goes under the name Dick Marsalis in a homage to the Ving Rhames character in Pulp Fiction, to make his new movie, Beverly Hills Gun Club.

It's not looking promising for Dragon, but he knows what you do when your movie tanks.

"In Hollywood there's only one thing to do whenever you suffer a crushing and public humiliation and that is, of course, find someone else to blame."