Bulworth
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ernie Lee Banks, Halle Berre, Kirk Baltz, Sean Astin, Warren BeattyDVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-03-16
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of Bulworth
Movie Review: Very smart and funny but also very frustrating
Summary: 3 Stars
Weeks away from his imminent re election Jay Billington Bulworth (Warren Beatty) hires an assassin to take him out. He has lost his faith in politics and can't bring himself to appear before his supporters and spout the same old speeches full of lies. Knowing that his time is limited Bulworth feels invincible and starts telling his version of the truth at his last few campaign stops. First up for the Senator is an all black church. He gets up to the pulpit reads the first sentence from his prepared speech and then goes hilariously off the script. What he says is both hilarious and shocking. One of the women in the crowd the beautiful Nina (Halle Berry) can't believe what she's hearing and waits for the Senator as he's leaving. Her and her two friends want to be campaign volunteers. His top advisor (a hilarious Oliver Platt) hesitantly gets their information and by the time Bulworth arrives at his next stop they are already working as valets. His next meeting is with Hollywood insiders and that ends by the Senator chastising them for wanting so much money and making so much crap. He also calls them a bunch of Jews. Bulworth is having the time of his life but his aides are besides themselves. They go into serious crisis control and begin issuing statements about the Senator's poor mental health. Bulworth spots Nina and offers her and her friends a ride. Nina decides to take the Senator to a hip hop club. After they go through the metal detectors Nina takes off leaving Bulworth to wander around on his own. He smokes a joint, gets mistaken for George Hamilton by a bartender, and starts rapping. From this point on Beatty raps all of Bulworth's speeches. After Nina gets back her and Bulworth dance into the early morning hours when he realizes that he has to give a speech at a lunch. When a rumpled Bulworth shows up at the banquet and delivers a tirade about big oil, health insurance, and the media in a rap that he made up on the spot everyone thinks he's lost it. The raps are clever and often funny but the joke gets old quick. Beatty is brave to go all out for this role complete with hop hop clothes knowing that some people will find it an embarrassing move by an old white guy. This is the film's biggest problem. It is an uneven mix of political satire and a man's immersion into black culture that feels awkward and potentially offensive whenever the jokes don't pan out. Beatty throws a very questionable character into the mix as well. He is a homeless black man that magically appears at all of the Senator's campaign stops and mutters some gibberish to Bulworth. He's hilarious don't get me wrong but why is he here? The last act of the film is more of the same. Nina takes Bulworth to South Central where she hides him with her family. In South Central his eyes are opened to kids as young as 13 walking the streets with guns and selling drugs. Bulworth learns that they work for a neighborhood dealer named L.D. (Don Cheadle). When Bulworth confronts him he explains to the Senator that he is doing these kids a public service since no one else would take a chance on them and give them a job. He laments the lack of education in public schools and how they are underfunded and says that that is why so many kids are choosing an easy life of crime. Bulworth takes these words to heart as they appear in his next rap on his final campaign stop an interview on live T.V.. Valid points are being brought up throughout the film although the message is lost in their questionable delivery. The other distracting problem is the identity of the hit man. At several points we see a gloved hand spiking drinks or loosening balcony railings. When the real hit man is identified it doesn't add up. The ending is a major disappointment and an easy way out. Beatty even has the audacity to stage it like a political assassination of the 60's. This film has a lot that works however. Beatty and Berry have a terrific chemistry between them. This is in evidence during their hot dance in the club. Oliver Platt is so entertaining as Bulworth's top adviser who is losing his mind. Fed up and unable to cope he starts snorting coke and lashing out at the press and anyone else who questions the Senator's behavior. According to IMDB West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin and writer/director James Toback (a very close Beatty friend) did a lot of uncredited rewrites to the script which was Oscar nominated. Bulworth is a great movie that just leaves a few too many loose ends and that let's the gimmick go on a little too long.
Summary of Bulworth
Believing his career is over, Senator Jay Bulworth (Beatty) takes out an enormous insurance policy - and a contract on his own life. but his impending death fills him with an outrageous desire to break the rules and tell it like it is.Jay Bulworth is your typical senator going through a nervous breakdown. The empty speeches, lies, money, and pressure have led him to plan his own assassination on a weekend trip home to California just before the election. However, a cord snaps in him and like Jim Carrey's rambling lawyer in Liar, Liar, Bulworth can only tell the truth. This new freedom turns Bulworth on and he spews the ugly truth about politics: he tells mass media they are as corrupt as insurance companies; lambastes a black church for not having leaders; and riles the Jewish power elite of Hollywood. He enters South Central running away from advisors (including a bemused Oliver Platt) and mixing it up with a potential new girlfriend (Halle Berry) and a local boss (Don Cheadle). He offends across the board, even developing an inherent knack to rap his speeches. And the public loves it. The weekend becomes a clarifying point for Bulworth: he finds a reason to live.
Beatty's rude and relevant comedy is a one-joke movie, but the joke is pretty good. It's a courageous film that is always sharp even though it loses narrative focus. Beatty's hilarious raps are so inspired they deserve repeated viewings. As usual, Beatty surrounds himself with a great crew, Ennio Morricone's music and Vittorio Storaro's cinematography being especially noteworthy. Beatty and Storaro even have the audacity to imitate two very famous photographs in the film's final seconds. The script by Beatty and Jeremy Pikser won the L.A. Film Critics award and was nominated for an Oscar. --Doug Thomas
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