Viking Night: Bulworth
By Bruce Hall
March 8, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
That same cynicism suggests an America that might be home to an entitled, narcissistic consumer culture that just expects the government to ensure things are always prosperous. Maybe we’re a socially disengaged people who concern ourselves with politics only during election years, and with religion on Christmas and Easter, or when two gay people want to get married. Are we an incurious bunch of materialistic apes who can’t relate to anything that isn’t presented to us as a product or a brand?
In other words - if you happen to have a problem with the government - maybe we’ve got the one we deserve. Isn’t a representative government filled with self-absorbed opportunists just a natural extension of the society that put them there? Every now and then, someone makes a film that appears to be asking this question. This time it’s Warren Beatty, who is no stranger to movies, politics, or movies ABOUT politics.
Oh, are you not familiar with Warren Beatty?
He’s what would happen if George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio had a son, and then sent that son back to the 20th Century to make critically acclaimed films, become politically active and also have incredible amounts of sex with other celebrities. Beatty wrote, starred in and directed Bulworth, using perhaps the last of his once considerable clout on one of the most bizarrely self-indulgent films I’ve ever seen that was not made by Eli Roth. Beatty essentially had a free pass to make almost any movie he wanted, and this is what he came up with. And it’s all based on what could have been a really interesting idea.
Pretend you’re an incumbent Democratic senator from California, it’s just a few days before the election, and your name is Jay Bulworth (Beatty). You’re one of those old-timey Kennedy democrats that nobody listens to anymore, thanks to that whole “crushing Federal debt” thing. Politics has passed you by, and now you’re the guy they send when someone needs a ribbon cut, or the ball thrown at a minor league game. They know you look good with giant scissors, and you can be counted on not to one hop the first pitch of the season. It’s good work if you can get it, but to an old school idealist like Bulworth, it’s career suicide.
So, he decides to commit suicide. But it’s not all about politics. He’s trapped in a loveless marriage with a wife who doesn’t respect him. His daughter hates him. He just lost most of his fortune in a bad stock investment. It’s all sad trombones and crocodile tears for Bulworth, and for the first few minutes of the film, it’s hard to tell whether or not we’re looking at Bulworth or Beatty, openly weeping as he listlessly flips through television channels. We’re not sure whether he’s crying because of what he sees, or because he’s self-righteous enough to think he’s the only one who can. Either way, the Senator embarks upon a series of questionable decisions, beginning with but not limited to hiring a hitman to assassinate him.
Now, you’ve got a catastrophically disillusioned politician who hasn’t slept in days about to embark on the last leg of his final campaign. He’s secure in the knowledge that he will soon be dead, and nothing he says or does will matter. He starts out being merely candid, like when he tells parishioners at an inner city church that yes, politicians do promise things to get votes and then fail to deliver because they know you can’t take your vote back. Then Bulworth drags his entourage to a nearby club for an all-night party, and reality quite literally implodes.
I saw Bulworth once or twice back in the day, and as I watched it now, I realized why I remembered relatively little about it. The moment Bulworth steps into that church, a subplot develops concerning a perceived leadership vacuum in the black community, according to Warren Beatty. The Senator is at best insulting, at worst racist as he speaks his mind and many of the parishioners inexplicably embrace it. In this universe, the black community was just waiting for Jay Bulworth to step up with some straight talk.
And about 40-odd minutes in, he cries havoc and lets slip the dogs of What the Fuck.
Without warning, Bulworth becomes a patently uncomfortable Beatty’s-eye-view of African-American culture, and it's impossible to look away. There are some good times, as Bulworth’s suicidal sense of anticipation has him jumping out of his skin every time a car backfires (something I can't recall hearing in real life, but it happens a lot in this movie). And there are genuinely funny moments when Beatty loses himself in the character’s neurosis. It reminds me of what this movie might have been; the story of a well-meaning man, enveloped by a system he helped create, trying to find meaning again.
Instead we get Bulworth becoming obsessed with Nina (Halle Berry), a girl he spots at the club. There is no logic to this; they're two main characters, they're supposed to meet, so they do. Nina turns out to be quite the activist, and when she delivers Bulworth his call to action less than an hour into the movie, it's a cringe inducing diatribe that sounds like she memorized it for ninth grade social studies. Remember, Beatty wrote this script, so he gets to make himself both the reluctant savior of the black community, and love interest to a beautiful woman half his age.
Speaking of that script, Berry and Don Cheadle (as the neigh crack dealer) passionately deliver urban-themed dialogue that sounds lifted from an episode of Family Matters. Add to this an elderly homeless man who follows Bulworth around like Ghetto Yoda, spouting obvious non sequiturs that are meant to be self-elucidating by virtue of the fact that they’re spoken with conviction. But neither the character nor his insane sputtering has impact on the story, and that’s really the biggest problem I have with the film in general. Gibberish doesn’t become profound just because you’re speaking earnestly. What’s the message here? That politicians lie? That a largely apathetic populace deserves it? That elderly black people give the best advice? That rap music is the best way to express a political position? About an hour into the movie, Bulworth becomes enamored with hip hop, and spends the rest of the film freestyling. Yes. Warren Beatty raps, and he’s actually not as bad as you’d think.
But it’s distracting, it’s confusing, and it’s really not clear what the point is. Bulworth makes a lot of noise, but it also never makes much of a point. Beatty comes across like a man whose politics have fallen out of style and whose influence has waned, and now there’s nothing left to do but kick and scream and make a movie where you make out with Halle Berry and freestyle about single payer health care and hope someone gives you an Oscar. I can only assume Beatty got his interpretation of black culture exclusively by watching episodes of Good Times. The basic concept here is amusing - a politician who’s become just as cynical as his constituents? Who is estranged from his values and his family? Who hires an assassin to end it all but begins to reconsider as his newfound candor helps him reconnect with voters?
That’s actually pretty brilliant. But the execution of it, not so much. Bulworth’s cynicism is not well defined, his motives are inconsistent, and the reconnection he experiences on the campaign trail is not plausible. There’s a scene late in the movie, where the Senator is addressing a group of donors from the film industry. He makes some startling remarks about Hollywood and the quality of product coming out of the industry, and openly wonders why he should be accepting their money. The moment is meant to be ironic, but instead you find yourself agreeing with him. Yes, Senator, Hollywood movies ARE a bunch of self-serving drivel!
The scene is amusing in ways that I doubt Beatty intended, and the same can be said of the film as a whole. I don’t know if it’s worth watching, any more than it’s worth it to drink an entire gallon of milk in one minute for five dollars. It all depends on how you view risk and reward. Bulworth takes a lot of risks, but I promise you, the rewards are few and far between.