The 39th Nashville Film Festival opened on a joke that we’ve all heard in some permutation. “Did you hear the one about the rabbi, the movie producer and the studio executive who walk into a bar?”

“The Deal,” starring Meg Ryan and William H. Macy (who also co-wrote and produced the film), extends this joke to a very funny, but ultimately somewhat lacking, 98 minutes.

“The Deal” opens with a depressed, pathetic-looking Charlie Berns (Macy) attempting to commit suicide by way of carbon monoxide poisoning. The poor schlub is a washed-up one-hit wonder movie producer who can’t seem to get anything right—even his own suicide is botched when his nephew Lionel, an idealistic young screenwriter played by Jason Ritter, interrupts him in the act. Then his car dies. And the CD player playing his dramatic “fade to credits” music malfunctions. This is the kind of humor that follows the characters around like a cartoon rain cloud throughout the film.

Instead of buckling under the pressure of Hollywood’s culture of failure and rejection, Burns decides to take one outrageous last shot at stardom; he decides to produce his nephew’s script about Benjamin Disraeli and place an action star who recently converted to Judaism named Bobby Mason (L.L. Cool J) in the lead role. What was once an art house film about the Suez Canal becomes a bizarre action film, now titled “Ben Disraeli – Freedom Fighter,” with gratuitous semi-nudity and explosions aplenty. In the meantime, Burns tries to seduce the studio executive assigned to the production, played by Meg Ryan, and deal with a credit-hungry rabbi who has become Mason’s de facto spiritual advisor (Elliott Gould).

On the surface, “The Deal” presents a brilliantly absurd idea and executes it well. William H. Macy is the kind of actor who is physically unable to put in a poor or even mediocre performance. Though Charlie Berns is a condescending, manipulative misogynist who begs to be hated, Macy’s performance and comedic timing on some hysterically funny lines makes him likeable as the sardonic protagonist. Had anyone else played this role, any kind of chemistry between Berns and any other character, especially with studio executive Diedre Hearn, would have felt phony and inexplicable. Berns is the kind of producer that doesn't do or say anything pleasant until he's in such trouble that his only recourse is to be a good guy. He's David O. Russell kicked into overdrive with a dash of Robert Evans tossed in for good measure.

Meanwhile, the young or otherwise unknown stars of the film escaped from Macy’s shadow and admirably rose to the occasion. In particular, Jason Ritter is a rising star who will soon rise out of the dregs of low-rated sitcoms and bad horror sequels and Fiona Glascott, a little known Irish actress, was downright charming in her role as the occasionally scantly clad co-star of “Ben Dis.” Even Meg Ryan put in an entertaining performance, although she was largely just being Meg Ryan.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from uneven pacing and a complete and total change in tone midway into the film when Macy’s character realizes that the “joke isn’t funny anymore.” By the end of the film, it drifted far into the territory of “Hollywood love letter” and never quite made it back to the satirical, absurd world that the first half revolved around. The plot, at times, also seemed like it was stitched together in post-production so that it would make sense. Occasionally crucial points are introduced in dialogue as if they were minor details, like the fact that the studio is being bought by some dastardly Canadians, which proves to play a pivotal role in the second half of the film, and the fate of Bobby Mason after an incident in South Africa forces the filmmakers to shut down production.

The film is less like Robert Altman’s classic cynical take on Hollywood producers, “The Player,” and more like that episode of “The Simpsons” where Mel Gibson asked Homer to help him reshoot a modern adaption of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” in which Mr. Smith impales the speaker of the House on an American flag and everything is blamed on a “dog with shifty eyes.”  At its best, “The Deal” is reminiscent of “The Producers,” but at its worst it just feels predictable with an ending that seems tacked on.

“The Deal” was a great way to break the ice of the Nashville Film Festival and is certainly worth seeing if it ever gets wider distribution, but there isn’t much to it beyond some clever dialogue and one of the most absurd films-within-a-film committed to the big screen.