Review #1518: Bulworth.
Cast:
Warren Beatty (Senator Jay Bulworth), Halle Berry (Nina), Oliver Platt (Dennis Murphy), Don Cheadle (L.D.), Paul Sorvino (Graham Crockett), Jack Warden (Eddie Davers), Isaiah Washington (Darnell), Christine Baranski (Constance Bulworth), and Amiri Baraka (Rastaman) Directed by Warren Beatty (#205 - Dick Tracy)
Review:
"I think it’s crazy to take what aspires to be a work of art and loquaciously expand on what you think about it. Ideally you’d like a movie to speak for itself. It’s like giving subtitles to one, two or three years of work. But nowadays it’s such a mass medium you have to. Especially if you make very few films."
It is hard to state how much responsibility one can really have on a film if they have enough self-confidence and control in oneself to back themselves up. Warren Beatty certainly belongs in that category. By the time the New Hollywood era rolled around in the late 1960s, he had already worked with numerous respected directors while eventually growing an interest in becoming more than just a star in a production, such as producing the hit Bonnie and Clyde (1967). In a film career that started in 1961, he has starred in 23 films (with considerable time spent in other interests such as family), while also serving as producer on ten of them, directing six of them (starting with Heaven Can Wait in 1978) and writing for five (he does all three for this film). He has made his films his own way to his own interests like a good director does that has received quite a deal of attention, such as an Academy Award for Best Director with Reds (1981) and an Irving G. Thalberg Award (meant to honor creative producers such as him) in 1999.
One can only imagine what kind of film can be made on the pitch Beatty had for the film: "A man is depressed, makes a deal for life insurance, takes a hit out on his life, then falls in love with a girl, changes his mind and tries to call the whole thing off.” It only was after he was given the green light to go with it that led to what he wanted beyond that pitch (in other words, a lost idealist finding the words to what he really wants to say to everybody that involve race relations and class disparity). Beatty sought others who helped him in the past with ideas, such as James Toback (writer on Bugsy) and Jeremy Pikser (previously a historical consultant on Reds and credited co-writer on this film with Beatty) while Aaron Sorkin reportedly did a re-write on the script, and the approach of hip-hop came about because of Beatty favoring it as a "great comic contrast." In a way, I had to resist my first instincts when it came to approaching the film. It definitely is a strange film in terms of tone that will either seem really dated or somehow fairly prescient in what it means to society as a message film that verges away from others of its type by going off the rails at certain points with humor. It is an acrid film, one that argues for one to find the spirit in them to rise above market research and go against the grain to speak the straight truth - no matter how it may come out to some in its clash of ideal and compromise. Is it a prescient film about the nature of straight-talking politicians? I don't know if I would go that far (because just saying "It's the film for [current year] politics" is complete hokum), but it definitely has a bit of meaningful sting as a wakeup call of sorts for what matters most: Stick to the issues and just money compromises (whether Democrat or not). It certainly isn't perfect by any means, but I did find myself soon enjoying its attempts at satire that hit more often in striking lines with a beat towards the present without becoming too dated in outlandish histrionics.
One might come to see Beatty have his share of dialogue in rap, but they will generally also stay to see him engage in some straight charisma that will rally some insight alongside some decent timing that never seems too buffoonish, although the romance is debatable. His little jabs at everyone along the way in talking facts (or at least straight-edge ones for 1998, like supporting single-payer healthcare), for better or worse. Berry provides some intrigue, although really they seem more suited as a counteract than anything involving romance mostly because it also just happens to be interlocked with this assassin stuff very disjointedly - she has a good sense of careful charm while playing against a beleaguered (or perhaps strange) Beatty. Platt plays the sniveling type that surely was meant to be an amusing supporting counterpart to management, which he does fine despite not really being that funny (one almost would rather see a criminally underused Warden in that role instead). Cheadle makes fragmented appearances that likely deserves more to really do, which can be reflected with a just as quiet Sorvino in their deep presences within certain interests. On the whole, its first half seems more suited to more interesting moments of farce and perhaps some insight moreso than the stranger (if not still curious) second half that trades in a suit for contemporary clothing and becomes perhaps a bit more hollower than it really believes it should be. I can't say it really kicks in for all of its 108 minutes to be anything more than a passing curiosity of its time, because it really does dwell a bit all over the place, but the rails can go off and still click fine. The ending yearns to inspire a lasting thought about being a ghost with a song to sing for when it comes to saying (and being) what you believe in, and whether the film succeeds in actually generating a push for curiosity about certain aspects of society (race, and I mean more than just asking if you can solve racism by having everybody mix in as one race) is up to how much of it really resonates in the final margin call.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
