Friday, September 7, 2007

In the Screening Room - Barry Levinson's
Bugsy


Session 006 - Bugsy

Who saw it and what are your thoughts on it?


By Brian Mulligan at 7:35 AM

1 comment:

Brian Mulligan said...

I liked Bugsy. I didn't know, well, anything about the film heading in except that Warren Beatty starred.

I didn't know it was a gangster film. I didn't know Harvey Keitel or Annette Bening were in the film.

I was plesantly surprised.

Warren Beatty plays an emotionally unstable gangster by the name of Ben 'Don't call me Bugsy' Siegel. He's a borderline lunatic, but Beatty does a good job grounding the character and making him believable. How do you survive in that world without at least being a little nuts?

The relationship between Beatty and Bening's character is just as deranged as you would expect (Ben ends up stealing her away from another gangster even though he's already married himself).

Really, the film is probably a little too in awe of it's lead character. It paints him as the mastermind behind Las Vegas (which he might have been, but the guy is also a coldblooded killer so there's no reason to overvalue him).

It's by no means a perfect film or on the level of a Scorsese-directed gangster picture, it doesn't have the Greek tragedy themes running through the background or as interesting of a visual or written sensability.

It is, however, well worth watching. It's strongly acted by Warren Beatty too (who seems to love these gangster pictures, doesn't he? Bonnie and Clyde, Dick Tracy, Dillinger and this?) and Annette Bening as well. Plus, it's just an interesting storyline... even if they go a little overboard painting Bugsy as the Vegas prophet.

September 16, 2007 at 9:27 PM

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