Review of Bugsy (1991) by Stuart K — 06 Feb 2015

Directed by Barry Levinson, who followed up the Oscar success of Rain Man (1988) with his very personal passion project Avalon (1990), he had another little passion project in mind, but when he was offered this crime drama written by James Toback (The Gambler (1974) and Two Girls and a Guy (1998)), Levinson saw instant potential, and it makes for an epic gangster drama, quite beautifully made.

It tells the life and times of Jewish gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (Warren Beatty), who worked for the New York mob before he headed out to Hollywood, where he fell in love with aspiring starlet Virginia Hill (Annette Bening), even though Bugsy was already married to Esta (Wendy Phillips) and had 2 daughters.

While out in Los Angeles, Bugsy works as representative for his associates Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and Charlie Luciano (Bill Graham), doing jobs with notorious mobster Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel), mostly robbing betting joints.

But Bugsy has a vision of a betting joint all of his own, over in Las Vegas, where it's legal. It's a morality tale about the absolute corruption of absolute power and how greed, love and money makes monsters of us all.

Beatty gives a likable turn as the notorious Bugsy, who had a great vision, but never lived to see it snowball into a behemoth. As for Levinson, he was about to unleash a behemoth of his own. Toys (1992).