One of these days, William H Macy will be recognised for the truly phenomenal acting talent that he is. ‘The Deal’ is his most recent ouevre, which he adapted in league with its director, Steven Schachter, from the debut novel by best-selling author and Hollywood screen-writer, Peter Lefcourt.

The story is a largely familiar one, which will not exactly excite the innumerable Hollywood ‘luvvies’ that will be more than accustomed to its surprisingly critical contents. Of course, Macy (playing the part of ‘Charlie Berns’) is known for his laconic dry humour, truly unforgettable facial expressions and his small stature. Pitch him up against the might of Elliot Gould (‘the rabbi’), the stunning loveliness of Meg Ryan (‘Deidre Hearn’), son-of-his-father Jason Ritter (‘Lionel’) and the growing ber-cool of LL Cool J (‘Bobby Mason’) and you achieve a near perfect balance of comedic plot characters.

The tale starts with Macy hooking up the exhaust of his aged Mercedes-Benz to his leaky and ill-serviced home, in a feeble attempt to commit suicide. His once great status as a film producer is clearly in the mire, as tends to happen in the fickleness of glittery Hollywood. His nephew (Ritter) arrives with a treatment script of fairly merchantable quality, which stymies his feckless attempt to end his life.

They pursue a gruesome attempt to bludgeon Hollywood’s money moguls into financing ‘Bill & Ben’, a costume drama dealing with the rivalries between the 19th Century British statesmen, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli. Of course, wishing to engender the support of the Jewish community, a visit to Gould results in a tenuous link. However, Macy experiences an ‘Eureka’ moment during which he completely alters the original script (promising new writers at every juncture) in favour of engaging the lead role services of a recent convert to Judaism, the black action hero, ‘Bobby Mason’ (LL Cool J).

Needless to say, this pleases the actor’s rabbi (Gould), who is employed as Executive Producer on the film. But, a black Disraeli? Well, it works with the movie’s new title: “Ben Disraeli - Freedom Fighter”…

Thanks to a series of tortuous and largely baiting e-mails, text messages and erroneous telephone calls, a studio commissions Macy to make the film, in South Africa, the location chosen for its dusty dryness that is not dissimilar to ‘somewhere in the Middle East’. Amid a series of very funny scenes involving a maniacal director, a set building company based in Prague and the kidnapping (by mistake) of LL Cool J, a growing love affair between Meg Ryan (a studio executive) and Macy takes place.

As a result of the confusion and the missing ‘hero’, the revised all-action theme for the movie is dropped in favour of the original costume drama, which becomes an unwitting success story. Naturally, the film is really about the complete lunacy of the movie industry and its witty weaving and diving takes the viewer on a remarkable inside trek through some of the seedier side shows inherent to it. The rom-com element is largely by-the-by but, overall, this film will have you smiling from one near disaster to the next. It is a charming black comedy that is eminently watchable by all the family.