Review: Hollywood Banker

For this 2014 documentary, filmmaker Rosemyn Afman has chosen her father Frans Afman as her subject for her first-time film effort. Mr. Afman was a well-respected, well-connected financier from the Netherlands who was instrumental in the financing of such big Hollywood films as “The Terminator”, “Superman”, “Platoon”, and “Total Recall” as well as helping independent film studios like The Cannon Group and Carolco get into the mix with the big boys. A disciple of Dino De Laurentiis, the duo came up with the now commonplace concept of pre-sales, and Afman almost always managed to make his money back.

 

To be honest, as a documentary it’s really not all that impressive. The idea of the daughter learning about her father by making a doco about him is nothing new, and the rest is a bit reminiscent of the much better “Seduced and Abandoned”. The material here is frankly DVD extra stuff and visually it’s certainly no marvel either. It’s often interesting and watchable, don’t get me wrong. It’s just…not much of a film and I’m grading it as such. It’s pretty thin stuff, though any film that gives screen time to Cannon Group heads Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus (makers/distributors of a plethora of mostly questionable cinematic output) has to be at least watchable. Whatever your thoughts on the two men and their defunct company, they’re certainly unique characters and their part in cinema history is certainly interesting. The absolute unquestionable highlight here is Mickey Rourke praising Afman whilst basically calling Menahem Golan a cheap arsehole. In fact, I think the film is otherwise a touch too affectionate towards De Laurentiis and Cannon, calling them important independent cinema producers. I find that a touch bullshit to be honest, though I don’t deny De Laurentiis’ terrible 1976 “King Kong” was a financial success. I also enjoyed the interview with Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, who was clearly very fond of Afman (who comes across as a fairly mild-mannered, humble man for the most part). It’s interesting to see a bit of a different, more sensitive side to the director of “RoboCop” and “Basic Instinct”. I liked the segments discussing the troubled productions of “Superman II” and Roman Polanski’s “Pirates” (Afman doesn’t seem at fault in the former case, and managed to keep his money in the latter flop because his financing was not dependant on box-office).

 

A watchable curio for film buffs, but I would’ve preferred this as a DVD extra on one of the film’s Frans Afman helped finance.

 

Rating: C+