In a clever and promising premise, a hustling, down and out producer, acting teacher, and director, Bowfinger (Steve Martin), has a bit under $3,000 to shoot a film. He collects a script from his "receptionist-accountant" and assembles a crew including an ingénue off the buss from Ohio, illegals running from immigration officials, a camera man who "borrows" the camera and exotic cars from the lot where he works as a property grunge, and two old cronies to be the supporting cast. Bowfinger’s film, Chubby Rain, is about drops that fall containing the seeds of aliens who then grow inside of humans.

To make it all work, Bowfinger needs an action star. He approaches Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy). Actually, this leads to some genuinely funny lines about the relative merits of white and black actors delivered in Murphy’s machine gun staccato. Ramsey refuses to be in the movie or even read the script, but undaunted by such trifling realities, Bowfinger lies to everyone that indeed he has bagged the star. Thus begin the twists and turns that set up the fun.

To shoot the film, Bowfinger rolls the hidden camera while his stars walk up to Ramsey during his normal daily affairs and deliver crazy sounding lines about alien invasion and death threats. Funnily enough, the footage works because Kit is susceptible to believing in alien conspiracy theories. He is almost crazy with paranoia about what is happening to him and is just barely able to "keep it together" under the influence of a mind cult.

Two sequences in particular are gut busting hilarious. In one, Eddie Murphy plays a nerd hired to stand for Kit Ramsey who must cross a freeway. He is convinced that the drivers are stunt men when in fact they are not. The crossing combines Murphy’s brilliant talent for physical comedy with special effects of superimposed cars and trucks rushing by. In another sequence, Bowfinger’s dog is wearing high heals on his front feet to make the ominous clicking sound of an invisible pursuer in an underground parking garage. The dog walks and stops on command scaring Kit Ramsey into a panic as he flees to his Ferrari and peels out of the lot.

Part of the problem with the overall story is lack of focus. While ostensibly the story of Bowfinger and his drive to make his movie, the story carries a bunch of sub-plots, which are never brought to completion. For example, one sub-plot is Kit Ramsey’s affiliation with a mind cult and its oily ominous leader. In fact, Terrence Stamp plays the role convincingly, and we laughed when he is shown manipulating Ramsey’s fears and siphoning his money. Still, the bits in the main story are not really about Kit Ramsey and certainly not about his cultic involvement.

Also, the film pulls back in critical moments. The ingénue (Heather Graham) is a bottom feeder, sleeping with everyone in the cast when she believes they will advance her career. Yet, she pays no price and receives no real benefit. The slightly over the hill diva (Christine Baranski) never really sees the folly of her vanity. Jokes and funny situations make us laugh, but for comedy to really move us and to carry a movie, character flaws must have consequences.

In a sad note, Robert Downey Jr. has a small role of a super-suit producer, which he played with reptilian slither. Alas, this may be the last film we see him in for a while because he is spending time in jail for parole violation related to drug use.