Bugsy: Director’s Cut
The film resume of one Warren Beatty is known to be quite spotty: When he misses, the results can be awful, but when he hits he’s capable of pulling off a classic. Thus is the case with this 1991 release (and Best Picture Oscar nominee), which stars Beatty as the real life gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegal, who along with his infamous cohorts rose to the top of the New York City crime syndicate before Siegal was sent to California to establish a power base out there as well, ultimately getting caught up in the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and eventually putting the pieces in place for what would become the Las Vegas Strip. Beatty (despite during filming being 15 years older than Siegal was when he died) does manage to do some of the best acting of his career here particularly when he makes a mob underling who has stolen from him crawl on his hands and knees and bark like a dog and oink like a pig for him, or even when his wife confronts him about wanting a divorce and basically slaps the truth out of him until he confesses. The issues lie primarily with the script which, much like its main character, is erratic and jumps from one plot thread to another and is epitomized during a scene where Bugsy is at his New York mansion and jumps from his daughter’s birthday party in one room to a meeting with his mob buddies in another all while on the phone to his man in LA. The real significance coming out of the film though is that Beatty (long renowned as one of the premier ladies’ men in Hollywood) finally met and married the woman that he has settled down with in the years since in co-star Annette Bening, who plays the role of Virginia Hill, the would-be starlet that Bugsy fell for and ultimately made a partner in his Vegas venture with disastrous results. Once again the script along with director Barry Levinson makes the mistake of romanticizing their relationship with some witty but out of place Hollywood-style dialogue exchanges and sequences, when the truth is that the real Ms. Hill was a far more deceptive and manipulative person in real life, which is something the filmmakers shy away from. As for the rest of the cast, Harvey Keitel as Mickey Cohen (himself a fascinating mob figure whose life story would make a cool film) gets a GREAT intro scene when he first meets Siegal, but then is neutered for the rest of the film and becomes Bugsy’s meek little lapdog, making one wonder how Keitel managed to secure a Supporting Actor Oscar nom, while Ben Kingsley as Meyer Lansky definitely gets a few solid moments to justify his own nomination, but for the most part stays on the outside of the plot looking in; Elliot Gould briefly returns from the dead to play a mob informant and old friend of Bugsy’s who must be disposed of to Bugsy’s great chagrin; and Joe Mantegna provides window dressing as Hollywood movie star and mob associate George Raft. At times, the movie seems to veer off course, such as when Bugsy gets it into his head to try to assassinate Benito Mussolini all by himself, and the continuous motifs such as Bugsy resenting being called by that nickname (established in the opening scene) and his trying to be more articulate by repeating the same phrase over and over again when he’s alone tends to be a bit much, but really what brings the whole thing together is Bugsy pursuing his dream of building up Las Vegas with his luxury casino hotel, the Flamingo, thus leaving his mark and allowing his mob associates to expand their territory into profitable (and legitimate) business ventures, even as it’s discovered that the deceitful Hill has embezzled $2 million of the building budget for herself in a Swiss bank account and brings down a firestorm that finally leads to Bugsy’s demise. Regardless, that is the hook that succeeds wonderfully here, that of being so sure that one can make a dream come true that one quite literally bets their life on it, resulting in a product that, while not up there with the best mob movies, nonetheless is quite an engaging piece of entertainment in its own right…
8/10