It sometimes seems that inside every struggling actor in Hollywood, there is an aspiring filmmaker who genuinely believes that his or her experiences in filmland would make for a hilarious low-budget independent comedy. Unfortunately, writer/director/star Dan Martin was given money to make that motion picture, and The Shot is the uninspired result. Martin plays an aspiring actor who, along with a similarly hapless actor pal, conspires to steal the only print of a hotly anticipated blockbuster. Along the way, The Shot takes on such fresh comedic targets as eccentric filmmakers, power-hungry executives, bad theatrical productions, and greedy agents. The Shot's marshmallow-soft satire of Hollywood will shock and surprise only those who get all their information about the film industry from 1930s newsreels and Entertainment Tonight. The movie tries to coast along on sheer underdog likability (and a brief, painful cameo by Dana Carvey), but the fact is that there's nothing in it that hasn't been done before, and better. If nothing else, The Shot should at least encourage some sort of moratorium on the sort of overly familiar Hollywood satires that have been predominant since the success of The Player.