YOU ARE MY AMIGO, NEGRO by Kristian Lin
Political satire is tough to do. Especially in America; our government's absurdities aren't as outrageous as those of a banana republic's. And it's really tough to do it in a movie, where considerations like narrative and characterization have to contend with political commentary. If you want to point out what's wrong with the government, it seems you have to write either a long, dull, harangue of a book, or a snappy op-ed piece which, if it's done really well, will still be talked about two weeks after it's printed.
Even the greatest movies that we call political satires aren't really about politics. DUCK SOUP is much more successful as a vehicle for the Marx Brothers' nihilistic insanity than as a patch on the rise of dictatorships in the 1930s. DR. STRANGELOVE, too, is more of an antiwar screed that mocks Cold War paranoia rather than going at the nuts and bolts of America's political system. Lately, we've seen WAG THE DOG, a jaunty film whose shallow cynicism didn't accomodate serious political commentary, and PRIMARY COLORS, more of a character study of politicians and their aides.
These things are important to remember while pondering the hard-to-fathom critical raves that have greeted Warren Beatty's BULWORTH. If this is what passes for political satire these days, we should bring back the '60s. Beatty's film is co-produced by Frank Capra III, which is only appropriate, since this movie is about as trenchant as MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, though not nearly as entertaining.
The movie's title character is a Democratic U.S. Senator from California named Jay Billington Bulworth (His family names evoke old money, but the avuncular "Jay" is tacked on as his Christian name. I suppose if he'd used the initial "J." instead, he'd be a Republican and we'd have a different movie.). With a primary election approaching, Bulworth has a Jerry Maguire-like crisis of conscience brought on by insomnia and bad pizza, and he puts out a contract on himself. Freed from caring about what happens to him, he proceeds to a church in South Central L.A. and tells the crowd that Democrats don't care about African-Americans any more. He then embarks on a crusade of publicity stunts designed to expose the undue political influence wielded by corporate fatcats.
The first problem with the movie is that it's too placid. Bulworth is a dependably self-serving pol who suddenly goes off the deep end, and Beatty's the wrong actor to play this type. Al Pacino or Jack Nicholson would have been too crazy from the get-go, but Beatty isn't crazy enough - there's no sense of liberation to Bulworth's unburdening of his soul. The part needed Gene Hackman, or maybe an older Mel Gibson.
It's more than just a case of the wrong actor playing Bulworth. The rest of the world around him seems curiously undisturbed by such a high-level politician's pulling a Howard Stern act. When he raps at a fundraiser (the movie's best scene), Bulworth's wife Connie (Christine Baranski) just pinches the bridge of her nose, as if he had committed a medium-sized faux pas like admitting that he hated TITANIC. It's hard to believe that Bulworth's love affair with the truth is such a big deal if he isn't creating an uproar. This is Beatty the director's fault - a more media-savvy filmmaker like Tim Robbins or even Barry Sonnenfeld would have brought BULWORTH's look and feel in line with the Information Age, and imparted some comic verve to this satire that's too self-important to be funny.
The subplot about Bulworth running from his own hit man doesn't pay off. Nina, a girl whom Bulworth picks up at a black nightclub, is a particularly rickety construct. She's a revolutionary descendant of Black Panthers posing as a nightclubber, which is just this side of plausible, but having her at the center of the assassination plot is too much for the thin characterization to bear. Her two-minute academic treatise on the problems in America's inner cities is just painful. It doesn't help that she's played by Halle Berry, an uninteresting actress to begin with who's too refined for a part like this. Only someone who has been in Hollywood as long as Warren Beatty could mistake her for a girl from the 'hood.
The movie's an aging white boy's idea of cutting-edge (and it's disappointing to see some other aging white boys in the press praising the film). The satirical targets are dusty, offensive stereotypes - Jewish Hollywood suits, Chinese businessmen, crooked insurance executives. This filters all the way down to Nina's tag-along friends, who improbably add gospel harmonies to a church hymn. Meanwhile, Beatty plays it safe and scores some cheap points off special interest groups without faulting the voters who elect their puppets (and pay to see movies, by the way). Well, Bulworth does tell the black voters to "put down your fried chicken wings and malt liquor and get behind someone else besides a running back who stabs his wife." The fact that this is the movie's only challenge to the electorate only deepens the movie's racism. I'm sure that was hardly Beatty's intention, but there it is.
Beatty has been praised for taking the unprecedented step of making fun of himself in this movie. Yes, Bulworth's stilted rap and constant need to ask the meaning of phrases like "nappy dugout" raises hopes that the movie's derision will extend to white wannabe hipsters. Sadly, though, Beatty fancies himself down with the brothers in more important ways. He presents Bulworth as a hero for touting old-fashioned white liberal attitudes, laced with some obscenities and a nastier attitude. It isn't that this thinking is bereft of good intentions, but BULWORTH only proves how hopelessly simplistic it is as a take on race relations. African-American intellectual life is enriched by its diverse viewpoints, and the movie, instead of seizing the opportunity to depict that, uses its black characters to unquestioningly validate Bulworth's point of view. By the end of the movie, Nina adoringly tells the senator, "You my nigga." (My immediate reaction to hearing that line: "Eww.")
There are a few bright spots. Don Cheadle's burdened with the role of a drug dealer whom Bulworth converts to activism, but he works hard to keep it real. Oliver Platt's here, too, as Bulworth's coked-up chief of staff, and he's a dangerous man to have in a supporting cast, because he steals scenes so easily (he's been doing it for years, too - why hasn't he gotten more work?). He's the only one who lends any urgency to the proceedings.
BULWORTH provides more evidence that Warren Beatty has succumbed to his own ego. What a shame that such an intelligent and committed artist will probably go down in history with 1990's DICK TRACY as the pinnacle of his film-directing career. Bulworth's Robert Kennedyesque assassination is the culmination of nothing except Beatty's own martyrdom complex - he sees himself going over that hill with Abraham, Martin, and John. Warren, here's a tip. You're still handsome at 61, you're fabulously wealthy, you're happily married (I presume) to a beautiful movie star, and you have three beautiful children with her. Think twice before you ask us to feel bad for you.
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