Bulworth

Year: 1998
Genre: Political Satire
Director: Warren Beatty
Stars: Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, Oliver Platt, Sean Astin, Joshua Malina
Production: 20th Century Fox

For those who ever had the inclination to see Warren Beatty rap, boy do I have a movie for you. To be honest, much like today's circus-like political climate, I have no idea what to make of this film. Is it a mess? Is it a masterpiece? Misunderstood? Offensive? Passionate? Tone-deaf? Can it be all of those things? I'm going to venture to say yes.

Jay Bulworth is a longtime Democratic Senator from the State of California. The first time you see him there are frames in his office of Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson and other prominent civil rights leaders. Yet the campaign ads playing in his office ring of a former liberal turned centrist. Sacrificing his values and trapped in a marriage that's been dead for a while, the insomniac Senator plans to end his life; suicide via hitman. Then he campaigns like a madman telling the truth as he sees it.

I can see where the film is coming from and I give it props for its bluntness. Former rebel-rouser turned Hollywood celebrant Warren Beatty cashed in all his chips to play the manic Senator who sputters his "rhymes" with the truth of the streets. By all outward appearances Beatty may have lost his cache after Dick Tracy (1990) under-performed back in the early 90's but truth be told, Bulworth feels more like his Swan Song leaving everything out on the field.

My Fellow Americans (1996),
not among the savvy political comedies...

Bulworth was released among a mass of savvy political comedies that defined the Clinton years. Dave (1993), Primary Colors (1998) and Bob Roberts (1992) all left an indelible mark and honed in on very specific cultural pressure points and policies. Bulworth is the only one to my recollection that concentrated largely on race, urban blight and crime; a subject not captured outside of movies like Do the Right Thing (1989) and Boyz n the Hood (1991). In other words, movies made by black filmmakers for black audiences, appreciated by the critical community though largely ignored by white America.

Yet as much as I'd like to give Bulworth a thumbs up for focusing on a misrepresented population and catered by white liberal guilt I just can't. Much of it has to do with Beatty's borderline black-face one-man mistral show. For all his good intentions, the level of appropriation and white paternalism should have been enough to make audiences of the nineties look twice. The only person who manages to break through Beatty's campy monologue on race relations is Don Cheadle's L.D., a drug kingpin who scolds the Senator for the company he keeps. Even then his words are simply parroted later as a lazy attempt to empower. It's like Bulworth became Cheadle's white-friendly translator.

Dear lord Beatty! You're making a scene!

I will say this, despite my reservations, this film will remain in my memory for quite sometime due in large part by the visuals. The story certainly puts the audience in the point of view of the sleep-deprived Senator. The dialogue overlaps in a dizzying cacophony of sounds, the lights gleam with jarring intensity and the camera likes to doddle in a series of one-takes yet never seems to stop moving. I suppose that's something; that despite its insensitive portrayals and warped politics it still manages to be visually mature.

Suddenly everyone thinks they can rap now.

Yet despite it's flair, there's the problem of believably. Within a 48-hour period the Senator's campaign implodes in a flurry of insanity. He manages to run from his handlers several times, drive a limo into oncoming highway traffic, slink away from public view to rendezvous with a young Halle Berry, assault a police officer, attend a drug dealer's party and steal a car. This is not even including what he says to his donors! It's realistic for the media to eat it all up in an almost orgasmic fashion but its patently unrealistic for the man to become a political icon because he does all this madness while rapping like a elderly Beastie Boy.

In an almost perverse way, Bulworth has become a harbinger of the modern political landscape in two major and tragic ways. With the repeated incidences of police officers killing unarmed black men and women, it's easy to project the same frustrations we see on the nightly news with the story of Bulworth and his near suicidal odyssey. Much has changed in the last seventeen years yet we still face the exact same problems concerning racial relations now; lack of opportunity, social injustice, abhorrent drug abuse, lack of diversity in those in power, and a huge swath of the population either ignoring the problem or denying there's a problem at all.

Then there's Bulworth as a cult of personality. As his behavior and public persona becomes more erratic, his handlers morph the Senator's new-found honesty into a cynical political strategy. New acolytes to Bulworth's kamikaze campaign consume his words, feed off his brevity and are entertained by his one-man circus act. Dare I say it? In a time before Twitter and Instagram, Bulworth predicted the singularity that is Donald Trump. Bulworth may have a more inclusive message than the Donald but his presentation is much the same, i.e. that of a preaching, vitriolic, rebel-rousing populist. Also much like Trump, instead of apologizing for his insane proclamations, Bulworth doubles down, trampling over anyone with a semblance of sanity.

Much like the American political process, Bulworth is likely messy and off-putting by design. I applaud its efforts but a bi-product of this movies messiness are offensive caricatures and absurdly painful moments that are as unhelpful as they are untactful. Its interesting to note that this movie, unlike Warren Beatty, is still relevant though unfortunately its relevant for all the wrong reasons.

Final Grade: D