Review of Bulworth (1998) by Jake R — 20 Dec 2009

The murky realm of the political movie......we're on thin ice here, with both Republican and Democrat camps occasionally giving themselves and excuse to rant and sling mud against the other. Though the age when the radical politics of Hollywood stars is long gone, thank goodness, occasionally the odd film will be released with a strong message, and, to be honest, we kind of need that controversy in a world of total apathy.

And that is Bulworth's, the man and the movie's, main point, that politics has become nothing more than a mildly distracting sideshow in people's lives.The very opening titles state that no one gives a damn about Clinton, and he was the best thing for American since Kennedy. That the masses will only listen and react to the most extreme kind of subversion in the political role imagineable is not the most subtle of comments, particularly on Beatty's part, but then Americans don't do subtle.

Before we get to any kind of detraction let's look at the good, or rather brilliant, things about the movie. For a start it move at breathtaking speed, never slowing down for a moment to rush from one set-piece to the next, mirroring Bulworth's water-tight, sleep-deprived energy. Ennio Morricone's swirly score, on the rare occasions it's actually heard, is typically beautiful, though somewhat parodic with his penchant for opera divas. The urban soundtrack is fantastic, pulsing with vicious beats and scattergun but volatile brio. The central performances are outstanding. How this wasn't Berry's breakout role is a mystery, as she convinces wonderfully as the hard edged youngster, all soft and luscious beauty. Don Cheadle likewise convinces as a tough, small-time gangster, while the hapless Jack Warden appears literally strung out at wits end as he fails to keep up with the senator's manic energy. But of course the real plaudits go to Beatty himself, creating an iconic character out of Jay Bulworth with his gravelly voice and beefy, towering physicality. He suitably looks tired as hell and worn to exhaustion, and his public breakdown looks more the work of a man enjoying his loss of responsibility rather than any revolutionary figure. Indeed, Bulworth never really seems to be personally motivated to 'tell it like it is', as his end tv confrontation shows him recycle previous, angry statements made by the ordinary people he's met along the way. In fact Bulworth's most potent comment is the old hippie mantra of 'make love not war' contextually charged for the post-Civil Rights post-Rodney King era, and it still doesn't sound half bad.

Of course most people (i.e. Republicans) will be outraged at the level of disrespect shown to figures of authority. Everyone from oil companies to health insurance to the media and press are given a fiery indictment to their own obscene greed and selfishness at the expense of the majority of the population, and the end result is a rather bleak comment on just how useless politicians are. All of Bulworth's raps point out how helpless he himself is, how little his political position can actually do in the face of interferance from so many big businesses, and it's scary how true this is. It's been a public secret for decades, all the way back to Lyndon Johnson, but still it's a depressing though of how little politicians themselves actually matter in how the country is run, an unfortunate effect Obama has exposed simply by being an honest and conscious man, as well as black.

Ethnic minorities, specifically black people, make up the last major element of the film. However bad the situation for ordinary Americans is, it is always magnified ten-fold by the extraordinarily apalling position African-Americans occupy in the US. There are a thousand and one reasons why this is but the film chooses not to get into that, instead letting the black community speak for itself why things are so bad and just how angry everyone is. True Beatty may have co-wrote the script bu, crucially, he listens, and he uses his own position as a megaphone to the otherwise ignorant white masses. Some of the arguments come from unlikely sources, particularly Cheadle's gangsta, but nevertheless they are powerful and they are true, and any racism comes purely from the viewer's reaction. This is a beautifully deft examination of African-American values and there's a lot of real love despite the profanity and violent overtones, most memorably shown in how two black women sing hymns with overwhelming passion in a church full of turgid white people, a fact Eddie Izzard has subsequently made clear.

In the end this is a brilliant piece of cinema, by turns equally inspiring and disheartening, but one can't help shake the feeling that this is the filmic equivalent of a remarkable piece of journalism. It makes for incendiary and damning outrage at the pathetic state of the US government, but it's not life changing, because it merely states the facts rather than follows them up. Mind you, if Beatty did that then the film would turn into a polemic even riper for criticism and rebuttal by brainless Republicans, and he's got a lot more dignity than that. God bless America.