"Only two animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture", runs a caption at the end of David Mamet's crisp showbiz satire, which finds the author of "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "The Untouchables" in uncharacteristically light-hearted mood.

The quaint New England village of Waterford is invaded when a big-budget Hollywood crew arrives to shoot a period romance called The Old Mill. There's just one problem: the town's "old mill" burned down in 1960, forcing idealistic playwright-turned-screenwriter Joe White (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to undertake a drastic last-minute rewrite.

But for director Walt Price (William H Macy), that's the least of his worries. His leading lady, Claire Wellesley (Sarah Jessica Parker) is refusing to honour her contract and strip off for the camera; while leading man Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin) has a predilection for under-aged girls which threatens to capsize the entire production.

While paying homage to the classic comedies of Preston Sturges and Frank Capra (the town's hen-pecked mayor, played by Charles Durning, is named after James Stewart's character from "It's a Wonderful Life"), Mamet also takes aim at the movie industry with the same devastating accuracy he brought to the 1997 farce "Wag the Dog".

On this occasion, however, the writer-director keeps his trademark cynicism in check, giving his usual repertory company of actors (which includes his wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, awkwardly cast as a bookstore owner who falls for Hoffman's Barton Fink-like scribe) plenty of room to poke fun at the people who pay their wages.

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