Bulworth (1998)

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Bulworth has prime performers aplenty appearing in this order. Warren Beatty (Hilarious and so lovely.). Christine Baranski. Oliver Platt. Debra Monk. Florence Stanley. Jack Warden. Nora Dunn. Jim Haynie. Paul Sorvino. Richard C. Sarafian. Joshua Malina. Laurie Metcalf. Wendell Pierce. Sean Astin. Halle Berry (Halle is the most beautiful woman ever. She really is. I love Miss Halle Berry. She's so sexy in this movie. It's really romantic seeing Halle throughout Bulworth. I loooooove Halle, man. I love her more than anybody else in the world.). Ariyan A. Johnson. Isaiah Washington. Mimi Lieber. Stanley DeSantis. Michael Clarke Duncan. Barry Shabaka Henley. Don Cheadle. Graham Beckel. Larry King. Helen Martin. Michael Milhoan. Chris Mulkey. Billy Baldwin.Haha, this movie's really funny. And really silly. And really real. And really goofy, haha. And really smart. And really stupid, hahaha.Now is the time for a little rhyme. In honor of this movie. It's time to get groovy. I love you Halle Berry. I kinda wanna marry. You in real life. And I wouldn't think twice. I really love your beauty. You have a phat booty. You really make me happy. So I never feel crappy. You're really really pretty. The cutest in the city. I love your pretty smile. And your sexy style. You have the best eyes. And the best thighs. I love the way you stare. And your sexy hair. Your attitude's the best. Are you funny, yes. Halle you're a treat. You suck your sucker sweet. Baby you can dance. You put me in a trance. You flick your tongue so nice. I need you in my life. I love your free spirit. Your voice I'd love to hear it. Your lips I want to kiss. I know it would be bliss. You can act with the best. Forget about the rest. I promise you're the hottest. I am not being modest. Halle, give me all your lovin'. Gosh, you're hotter than an oven. In Bulworth, Halle, I love that I can see your thong. In life, Halle, I love that you inspired me to write this song.I'm not as good a rapper as Bulworth. Or ODB. Or Pras.'ghetto superstarrr that is what u rrr coming from afarrr reaching for the starrrs run away with meee to another plaaace we can relyy on each other uh huuuhh from 1 coorner to another uh huuh'

That is seriously messed up. I had no idea that cheating on your spouse was such a positive thing, as long as your spouse is white, and the person you cheat with is black. Not to mention the tired old nonsense about how Insurance companies are making healthcare expensive and blah, blah, blah…..look at how absurdly expensive healthcare has become now that the government has put their fat lazy fingers into it. My premiums have tripled, And I no longer can go to see a decent doctor, or go somewhere like Mayo Clinic, but I have to go to a dirty, sleazy downtown hospital where the nurses act like doctors. Thanks for NOTHING Obama. What a load of crap. The funny thing is, this movie seemed cool to me when I saw it as a young teenager, because I was still a kid, and had no idea how idiotic the whole socialist program was, and I was too young to be insulted as a white woman because I was still young enough to have some white guilt.

Warren Beatty is a California Senator who hasn't slept or eaten anything for days. He's distracted, exhausted, going mad. He decides to take out a large insurance policy and then arranges to have himself murdered by a hit man he's never met. Since he knows he's losing his life, losing his political position begins to look like a small matter, so he appears disheveled at fund raisers and criticizes Jews at a meeting of movie moguls, blacks at a meeting of blacks, refers to Catholics as "mackeral snappers," and so on. His staff are going mad too by this time.Eventually, Beatty falls in with a large and diverse black family in the ghetto, led there in a sinuous path by Hallie Berry. He picks up a skill at rhyming speech, dresses like a home boy in shades and phat pants, and gets one too many capitalists angry at him when he takes up liberal causes.I don't know why it doesn't work better than it does. It's not Beatty's performance, which is about as good as it usually is, and he has some very funny moments. The performances of Beatty's staff, led by Oliver Platt, are fine as well, except that they turn chaotic at the end. It's not Hallie Berry, who is so sexy, so beautiful, so fey in her prospect that she can do no wrong. Her father was African-American and her mother was a white European. She's only categorized as "black" because we all agree that she should be. Just as it's only common agreement that gives English separate words for "blue" and "green", while other languages have only one word for both colors. Sometimes "reality" is what we make of it. I'm throwing that in, just in case anyone is curious about issues like this. They should look up "the social construction of reality" in Google. Beatty's improvised rap lyrics are amusing when they're not too fast or too complicated to understand. The hip hop music is execrable. My heart sinks when I hear it because it takes so little skill to produce. I have more than enough electronic percussion ringing in my ears from the moment I get out of bed. And when my nervous system started to go berserk, my thoughts took on a peculiar configuration too but it had class -- iambic pentameter. I'm not sure of the significance of the ending. We've had a kind of lecture on the positions that many blacks are forced into, including the children, and the bitterness they feel towards whites. When Bullworth begins to spout his more generous views, at least some of them, like Don Cheadle, are so amazed that they reform. Okay. A nice warm and uplifting ending. But if it's supposed to be a feel-good fairy tale, why have Bullworth end up as he does? It doesn't seem as if the writers had a clear end game in sight. They're like some of our politicians trying to manage events in the turbulent Middle East.

My friend didn't really like this movie all that much claiming that he couldn't really relate to the African-American subculture, but what I really think is that this movie is directed to minority people in general and is quite anti-corporate.The movie is focused around incumbent senator for California, Senator Bullsworth. The movie opens with him watching his campaign trailers and crying. It seems that the weight of his position has finally fallen on him. We learn that his wife really doesn't love him anymore and he has asked a hit-man to kill him. Suddenly he turns on the political system and begins to drag it through the mud. The first speech is at a Negro church and when he is asked questions, instead of giving a sugar coated non-committal answer, he tells them the truth. They have no money and thus do not matter. Soon he turns on the corporate sponsors, criticising their manipulation of the political system by throwing lots of money in the right direction.Thus senator Bullsworth throws away his lifestyle and delves into the Negro community. He attacks the corporations that run the nation and supports the under powered minorities. He even turns his teeth on the drug pushers, seeing them as evil pawns of the faceless corporations.Basically this movie is Bullsworth's epiphany. He wants to die at first, and with this he has his epiphany - the realisation before his death. Throughout the movie we know that he is going to die, because even though he is popular, he cannot get away with making the statements that he is making. He is being incredibly controversial, and such a stance can never last that long. It rocks the boat way too much and as such can't be allowed to succeed. In the America of the movies things cannot change too much, and in fact, if it has happened before hand, things will be set straight. I guess this then shows the tragedy of society, that when a saviour arrives, he will be killed, because those in power don't want to give it up.