BUGSY (Barry Levinson, 1991) R

Reviewed: April 21th, 2002

The highest compliment I can pay Barry Levinson's Bugsy is that it made me want to run to Borders and grab a biography about the title character. Unfortunately that's also the worst thing I can say about it (more on this later). A biopic obviously falls to pieces if its protagonist didn't lead an interesting or exciting enough life, but that's not an issue re: gangster Bugsy Siegel. His life couldn't be more ripe for a film translation, considering the life-or-death web of femme fatales, the Mafia, a normal nuclear family, Hollywood, movie stars, Las Vegas, lots of stolen money and Mickey Cohen in which he operated daily (frankly I'm shocked no one made this film sooner than 1991). Not to take away from what screenwriter James Toback has accomplished-- Toback's wonderfully condensed the story of the self-obsessed dreamer who gave birth to Las Vegas, and made the tale terrifically entertaining/always riveting in the process.

That said, my possible misgiving about this film--I'm not certain it's a misgiving yet--is one of tone. At first I thought Bugsy was a comedy, it's so light. Occasionally it shifts darker, but it never seems to stay there for too long (until the end). There is an extreme airiness to everything. Now a film which can perfectly shift from comedy to drama and back again is a rare, beautiful thing that makes for some of our best cinema-- take Boogie Nights for example. I'm not sure Bugsy pulled the balancing act off -- not because the filmmakers weren't capable, but simply because they never wanted to stay on the dark side too long (as if they didn't have the courage to). Often the film reeked from the stench of over-glamorization, both of Bugsy and his world. Allure is a critical part of this film, no doubt, but (for example) Mickey Cohen is presented so damn kindly I wanted to be his friend. Is that characterization at the expense of reality? When I see L.A. Confidential I want to stay as far away from the murderous Cohen as possible (which is I'm pretty sure, how I would have felt in real life). A charmer's one thing, a good guy's another.

Granted, an important part of a movie about essentially bad men is empathy with the characters. But does Toback's Bugsy go one step too far? At times some peripheral characters will call Bugsy deranged or insane or so forth, and while yes he loses his temper a little too easily, I just flat out really really liked him. Is that a credit to the film or is the film a cheat? I'm not asking for a one note characterization, I think at times, certainly we should like Bugsy. But not always. On The Sopranos, as much as we care for Tony, we also genuinely fear him. We're fucking scared. I can't say the same thing about Bugsy. There are some great scenes in which Warren Beatty quickly shifts gears and does show he's capable of cruelty, but just as soon, that cruelty vanishes (for long long stretches). There is such inherent decency and fairness in everything he does. While gangsterland-as-surrogate-world-with-its-private-set-of-laws worked brilliantly in The Godfathers, it sometimes felt fake/forced to me in Bugsy.

Admittedly, my speculation level's high-- I'm presupposing the real life Bugsy Siegel just has to be meaner than he is in this film (perhaps because that's what I've subconsciously taught myself over the years). Next I must read a biography to find out how many of my suspicions are true. Regardless, Bugsy's glossiness and lightness are one of the primary reasons this film is so damn fun, so maybe I shouldn't complain. Generally, I'm not of the mind that a biopic must be perfectly faithful to the life it depicts. But what bothers me is when I think a biopic could have been an even stronger film had it been more truthful. What pisses me off is when I feel like the audience is being patronized, like we're being told we can't handle sympathizing with the truly rotten, corrupt side of humanity.

Now for something I am sure about: Warren Beatty, as magnificent as ever, owns this film. He's one of the most lively and charismatic movie stars of all time and if he wasn't so charming and brilliantly manipulative here, perhaps all concerns from the previous three graphs vanish. It's as if his performance is so so so good, Toback needed to inject Bugsy with a little more vicious edge to compensate. All the supporting players are also dead on, especially chameleon Ben Kingsley (it blew my mind every time I pondered the chasm between his Meyer Lansky and his Sexy Beast) and the fantastic Annette Bening (a lot of Toback's best dialogue belongs to her).

As Bugsy barrels towards its inevitable conclusion, it plays at its peak. The ending packs a tragic wallop because the film (finally) fully embraces its somber roots.

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