Barry Levinson's WHAT JUST HAPPENED?--surprisingly not bad.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?, the Barry Levinson/Art Linson showbiz docucomedydrama (based on Linson's autobiography) is getting a limited theatrical release (don't know if it's also on pay-per-view) and, surprise, it's not at all bad (**1/2 on a **** scale). It's a welcome improvement over Levinson's 2006 MAN OF THE YEAR (an attempt to recapture the good old days of GOOD MORNING VIETNAM), with a decent straight-man performance from Robert De Niro and two primo comic turns from Michael Wincott as a "difficult" British director and John Turturro as a spineless agent of Bruce Willis (the latter doing a takeoff of Alec Baldwin's alleged prima-donna behavior pre-filming of THE EDGE, which Linson produced). Only major debit: the scenes between De Niro and Robin Wright Penn as a soon-to-be-ex-wife, which periodically kill the film's comic and serious momentum.