Bulworth (1998)

Warren Beatty seems to have it all. He’s been in some of the greatest films ever made, he’s famed for his sexual prowess and he’s a legitimately talented writer and director. If you’re able to deliver excellent performances in Bonnie and Clyde and McCabe & Mrs Miller, you’re an exceptional Hollywood star. If you’re able to write and direct Reds, a superlative historical epic, you’re a great creative mind. Being able to do all of these things and more is just showing off. Beatty has directed three movies since Reds. One is a colourful comic book adaptation (Dick Tracy), one is an obscure look at old Hollywood (Rules Don’t Apply) and the other is one of the most bizarre films ever put out by a major studio. Allow me to introduce you to Bulworth, a political satire that sees Warren Beatty don a beanie, put on a pair of shades and break into freestyle raps about healthcare.

The story is a little convoluted. Jay Bulworth (Beatty) is a liberal senator who’s sold his power to a conglomerate of insurance companies. He does their dirty work, becomes more conservative and kills bills that could bring healthcare to the masses. In a fit of self-loathing and utter disillusionment, Bulworth chooses an interesting method of suicide. He takes out a hit on himself. While he waits for the assassin to track him down and kill him, Bulworth finds a new lease on life. He goes to campaign events and tells blunt truths to stunned audiences. He tells a predominantly black crowd that he can’t help them because they don’t contribute to his campaign funds. He tells a collective of rich Hollywood moguls that their movies suck. He rejects the insurance companies and makes himself an honorary representative of black America.

This isn’t enough for Beatty. He goes the extra mile and takes a big risk. After meeting two enthusiastic black women, Bulworth becomes enamoured with their slang and attitude. He picks up a microphone and starts rapping about the first things that come to his mind. Saddam Hussein, healthcare, socialism, racism, you name it, he raps about it. Beatty does the rapping himself and it’s one of the most bewildering spectacles I’ve ever witnessed. I think it works. Just about. The rapping is supposed to be funny and strange, and it is both funny and strange. Bulworth is suffering a mental collapse and it expresses itself in the form of improvised hip-hop. It’s cringeworthy, shocking and completely outlandish, but it’s also incredibly entertaining. Beatty has complete creative freedom and he pushes his film to the limit.

After the opening burst of rapping and shock speeches, Bulworth takes himself on a tour of South Central LA. An incredible stretch of film sees the senator smoke a joint, crash into a nightclub, become a DJ and dance up close to a vivacious young woman named Nina (Halle Berry). Bulworth becomes a radical, Nina becomes his quasi-girlfriend, and his popularity ratings soar. I give credit to Beatty for putting some genuinely left-wing, lacerating politics into his film. Bulworth is highly critical of the Democratic Party for its refusal to act on poverty in black communities, it targets health insurance as a political racket and it holds little hope for the American political system. It’s a funny movie, and it’s a silly movie, but it isn’t a comforting one. Behind the strangeness, the substance of the film is despair.

Compare Bulworth to its peers. The majority of American political films from this time are cosy, feel-good dramas about warm-hearted Democrats trying to do the right thing. The American President, Dave and Primary Colours aren’t radical movies. All of these pictures are Clintonian projects that poke fun at sleaze, have stereotypical Republicans as villains and see their silver-haired heroes capture the heart of the nation with rousing speeches and common decency. Next to these movies, Bulworth looks like Marxist propaganda. America is a stratified society, and Beatty’s film acknowledges that the country’s racial division is deep and powerful. It’ll take more than a rousing, broadly liberal speech to fix it. The film has another powerful quality. Even though Bulworth is the picture’s obvious hero, the immediate popularity of his goofy rap schtick suggests a dark new era of political showmanship that feels oddly prescient in the Trump years.

Bulworth has to be understood in the context of 90s politics and popular culture. It feels like a two-pronged reaction to the disillusionment of the Clinton years and the aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King riots in LA. At the start of the film, Bulworth isn’t dissimilar to Clinton. He’s a New Democrat, pushing to the right and speaking positively and meaninglessly of the opportunity posed by the new millennium. He’s the compromised, unsuccessful centrist democrat, left speaking the language of Ronald Reagan and wallowing in his miserable personal life. Following the racist beating of Rodney King, the LA Riots, the OJ Simpson trial and the massive rise of West Coast gangster rap, Los Angeles became the epicentre for commentary on race in America. Beatty combines these two disparate worlds by getting his Clintonian senator to rap. In a strange way, it makes perfect sense. Bulworth doesn’t quite gel together, but I think it gets away with it. The sheer brio of the film’s story and performances carries over into its style of comedy. It carries you along with it.

I quickly found my peace with the rapping. I think that Beatty is trying to comment on how awkward and embarrassing white liberals can be around black people. I don’t think this comes across all that well, but it’s gutsy and good-hearted. The sheer surreality of seeing Beatty dressed up like Snoop Dogg and saying ‘motherfucka’ is more than enough to keep me happy. It certainly helps that the production had an absolute wealth of talent at its disposal. Ennio Morricone wrote Bulworth’s music, and the film’s cinematographer is Vittorio Storaro, one of the very greatest cinematic artists who has ever lived. Storaro worked on Apocalypse Now, The Conformist and Reds. Everything he touches looks incredible. When Beatty starts rapping, he’s cast in a gorgeous, golden glow of light, the trademark look of Storaro’s images. Oliver Platt and Halle Berry are strong in supporting roles and Beatty’s blithe enthusiasm is contagious.

Bulworth is far from flawless, and its strange sense of humour can be patchy, but it’s truly unlike anything else that you’ll ever see. The film has a risky, unpredictable energy which I find charming and commendable. There’s no telling what’s going to happen from scene to scene and Beatty isn’t troubled by questions of good taste or sensitivity. This is refreshing. In the current Hollywood landscape, films tend to be made with an abundance of caution and extreme sensitivity. I can respect the sentiment behind this shift, but I miss the years when movies threw caution to the wind and gambled on shock humour and risky politics. I was raised on South Park, and I like comedies to make me feel a little bit bad for laughing. When I watched Bulworth, I laughed out loud regularly and I gasped two or three times. I think that’s enough to recommend it.