Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Movie review - "Bulworth" (1998) **1/2

 I'm conflicted. I appreciated it being a film for grown ups, some of the political satire was sharp, like the jabs at the insurance industry. It did predict the appeal of the "outsider" galvanising things - like Sanders and Trump. Mind you, it wasn't the first movie to cover that ground eg The Candidate, Face in the Cword.

But so much was annoying. The lib-splaining, the age gap between Beatty and Halle Berry (I don't care if they make a joke out of it, why couldn't Pam Grier or someone have played this? I know the answer, but she should have), the moment where Berry goes to Beatty "you're my n*gger" (yikes), all the lecturing, the martyrdom, the homeless man telling us to live up to Bulworth's spirit..

Dramatically the big problem was the lack of connect between Bulworth/Beatty and the audience. At the beginning of the film he's having a break down and arranges for his own execution - fine. Then he continues to have a melt down, and is running around, and rapping, and dressed in a beanie, and being weird and it doesn't make sense, in part because we've got nothing to contrast him with. Only at the end when he starts acting like a regular person does he seem real. I mean, what does Bulworth truly believe? What did he believe? He's distant from the audience, hiding behind is breakdown. We never meet his daughter, his wife is a caricature.

Strong support cast including Oliver Platt (whose cocaine fuelled rants feel written by Aaron Sorkin but I could be wrong), Will Bailey, Jack Weston, Don Cheadle, Paul Sorvino, Christine Baraski, etc.

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