Bulworth (1998) 3 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring Warren Beatty and Halle Berry. Directed by Beatty
The truth shall set you free.
Jay Billington Bulworth, incumbent Democratic senator from California, is slowly losing his mind. Sitting in his Washington office late one night, he continually watches a loop of a campaign ad in which he is spouting some drivel about entering "the new millennium."
He watches the tape over and over, not saying a word.
Later, he meets with a powerful lobbyist for the insurance industry who, in exchange for Bulworth's word to kill some anti-insurance legislation in committee, gives the senator a life insurance policy worth $10 million, naming Bulworth's daughter the beneficiary.
Bulworth next meets with a shady character who arranges "research projects." The senator's requests that the subject of an upcoming weekend project in California be himself.
Thus, the senator and his advisers set off for California for the final weekend of his 1996 primary campaign.
This is the beginning of Bulworth, Warren Beatty's newest film.
The actor-writer-director-producer has long been a political activist, a Democratic Party favorite. But in Bulworth, the actor takes no prisoners. No one is spared, not Democrats, Republicans, the media nor even Beatty's own glamorous image.
In California, feeling liberated because of the arrangement he made, Bulworth speaks to a group of inner-city black constituents at a church. He tells them the truth: they are poor, so they have no power base. Politicians just tell them what they want to hear, make them empty promises, then go about their business of shilling for lobbyists who give them millions for their campaigns.
His advisers, of course, are aghast. Is this a new political strategy, they wonder? But instead of confiding in them, Bulworth merely reassures them that he has everything under control. Meanwhile, he hooks up with a trio of young black women who take him to an all-night club where he learns the joys and intricacies of rapping.
His next stop is a fund-raiser hosted by movie industry moguls. Bulworth manages not only to insult the big shots by belittling their product, but his Jewish contributors as well.
While all this is going on, Bulworth also has a sudden change of heart and tries to cancel the contract for the "weekend research project."
Bulworth is Beatty's most audacious and subversive movie. It is an attack on the hyprocisy and shallowness of our political system. It is more strident than Wag the Dog and more critical of the political process than Primary Colors.
Yet Bulworth also has a condescending and patronizing aroma, an air of '60s liberalism in which it was chic to invite a Black Panther to your New York penthouse or Beverly Hills mansion for a cocktail fund-raiser to demonstrate your support for the cause as well as ease your conscience.
There is no question about Beatty's sincerity. He has been a political activist for many years, and is one of the few actors who is willing to use his films as a soapbox for his beliefs. His outrage at what has become of our political system literally screams from the screen.
His approach in Bulworth, though, seems at times naive. After hearing Bulworth's profane tirade about race during a televised interview, a local drug kingpin decides to become a community activist. That is too unbelievable and Capraesque.
No doubt after viewing the film, some blacks may accuse Beatty of perpetrating the very racial stereotypes he is trying so hard to disparage. His depiction of a gangsta' lifestyle looks like sequences cribbed from various rap videos.
A saving grace is Beatty's total lack of vanity. He is one actor not afraid to allow himself to look foolish, whether it be walking around through most of the first part of the film with a big cocktail sauce stain on his shirt, or dressed in hip-hop garb, complete with sunglasses, in the film's second half.
The growing relationship between the older senator and a 26-year-old black woman, a smart, swaggering, but vulnerable performance by the lovely Halle Berry, touches more on Hollywood tradition than real life.
A deft comic performance is given by Oliver Platt as Murphy, the senator's top aide who grows more and more frustrated and confused as he watches what he believes to be his boss's self-destruction. Platt has a wonderful sense of timing, knowing what scenes to downplay and when to overact.
Bulworth's ending is a bit of a cop-out, yet it is the only avenue Beatty, who co-authored the script with Jeremy Pikser, can traverse for its demented, but enlightened, hero.
Bulworth may offend or shock some people. Others will find it highly amusing. Like politics, it is a movie that will be hotly debated.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com or at cbloom@iquest.net
cb
Carol Bloom of Bloom Ink Publishing Professionals 3312 Indian Rock Lane West Lafayette, IN 47906-1203 765-497-9320 fax 765-497-3112 cbloom@iquest.net
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