# Bulworth (1998)

### reviewed by
Serdar Yegulalp

    Bulworth (1999)
    * * * *

    A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp
    Copyright 2000 by Serdar Yegulalp

After seeing "Bulworth", I remarked to a friend that a movie like this, in today's political climate, was probably inevitable. At some point we were almost guaranteed a satire about a machine politician who snaps and does a Putney Swope on his constituents. Well, we got it -- and it's to Warren Beatty's credit that he managed to pull it off as well as he did. It is easily one of the best movies this country has produced in years.

Beatty stars (in a movie he directed, produced and wrote as well) as the titular character, a California senator who has reached total burnout. He sits in his office playing back his own TV commercials, like the zombified rock star in "Pink Floyd the Wall". He can't bring himself to mouth the same phoney glad-handling junk any more. Worse, he's lost tons of money in the stock market, and so has decided to set up a contract on his life and have himself killed.

The threat of death for some people is liberating, however, and Bulworth finds that he no longer feels pressured to tailor himself to his public. He shows up at an inner-city church, and when asked by one of the members of the congregation why he hasn't done anything for the black community, he responds in the only sane way left to him: "Well, that's easy: it's because you haven't contributed any money to my campaign." The audience roars derisively; Bulworth giggles. For the first time in his life he feels like he's done something right.

That's when the film cuts completely loose. Bulworth winds up getting tangled up with a crew of giggly [black] women, gets loaded in a rap club, and shows up at his next public speech disheveled and unwashed. Rather than hide or stall, he seizes the stage and delivers an impromptu rap song about how the government does a better job of providing medical coverage than the big corporations do, but we're propagandized into believing it's not true: "Say the magic word: SOCIALISM!" he bellows into the mike. He's transformed into DJ Bulworth, bringing a whacked-out mixture of social commentary and insider know-how into the public eye.

This is very funny, of course, but it's also shocking how confrontatory and genuinely uncomfortable it is, too. In a period where movies are doing just about anything to get our attention and shock us, it's sort of refreshing to see a movie that does this through social issues instead of bodily functions. "Bulworth" covers an amazing amount of ground for a two-hour movie: there's material on inner-city blight and the way constitutents are chosen and the politics of campaigning and TV and truth-as-a-commodity and much more.

Maybe too much more. The movie's biggest asset is also its biggest liability: there's just too much material here to cover effectively in a two-hour movie, and it's held together with a plot that is too obviously a plot. And there's an ending which feels unsatisfactory and hurried. It's not a perfect film, but on the other hand, what film that works like this, in so risk-taking a fashion, could be? "Bulworth" is not about its plot but about its insights and discoveries, and in that sense is indispensible. It's daring and invigorative. And it also made me laugh louder and longer than almost any other film in recent memory.

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