you know , i've seen network before , and it's a much better film . bulworth is , in the kindest of words , an " homage " to that picture , and at least it has an excellent role model . simply take the story about a tv newsman who goes nuts , stirs up controversy , and fatally angers the establishment and change it to a us senator who does the same thing , and you've got bulworth . warren beatty's title role performance is the only reason bulworth has anything going for it at all . much like tom cruise in jerry maguire , beatty takes a difficult character and makes it his own , and while beatty as a foul-mouthed politician is not exactly playing against type , it's still his very aggressive performance that carries the picture . everything else , from the dismal supporting cast ( halle berry has never looked so lost ) to the throw-away one-liners ( you've seen all the best over and over again on the trailers ) is cut-and-pasted from network or clearly dredged from some late night rewrite session . still , beatty's in fine form , and his outrageous wackiness takes the film halfway to where it could have been . ( and geez , he directed , produced , wrote , and starred in the film . . . maybe someone was a little too busy ? ) but overall , the missed opportunities , the overtly silly anti-pc message backed up by nothing , and the all-too-forseeable ending make bulworth little more than a fable that we already knew : that anyone involved with politics is totally insane . 
