Bugsy

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Ok, time for some catch up.

On Wednesday I watched Bugsy, a sort of mini-epic about about mobster Benny Siegel (don't call him Bugsy, he hates that). Long story short, it's pretty good.

This is definitely the best Barry Levinson film I've ever seen, and I like how he really goes overboard with the 1940's atmosphere. I think it was nominated for costume and set design Oscars, and they may not be the best ever, but they are some of the most noticeable. They try to cram so much detail into the design of every scene, and it's a nice hyper mix of period detail and old-fashioned gangster movie glamor. The visual style is also way over the top, in a good way, with all sorts of needless montages and silhouette shots and heavy rainy scenes to make it feel like some sort of coked-up, colorized update of a 1940s movie.

And Warren Beatty is great in this. He's got a natural charm, so you can understand why people would be drawn to Siegel, and he is so enthusiastic and ingratiating, and he has a lot of great rapid fire dialogue. But then, he always has this violence boiling right under his exterior charisma, and you know sometimes with just a quick look in his eyes that he could explode at any minute. He doesn't kill a whole lot of people during the movie, but there is a lot of tension running through many of scenes because you're always aware of his potential for violence.

So by the hour mark in this film, I thought maybe I was dealing with a gangster movie classic, but it wasn't to be. It stays entertaining throughout the 2 1/2 hour running time, but I think it treats the material too seriously in the later half. If it had just stayed an energetic, stylized throwback the whole way through, I think I would have liked it better. I could have done without the way the movie tries to make us, I guess, care for Siegel and his dreams, and his girlfriend and blah blah. I mean, the guy is an evil creep and murderer, I don't sympathize with him. I will gleefully revel in his debauchery and crime, and "like" him in that sense, but I won't actually care for him. But then, you know, something dramatic happens, and some very dramatic music cues up dramatically on the soundtrack, and I think the movie is telling me that his downfall is sad. It's not.

Ok, so, not an all time classic, but still really entertaining and lovingly made, with great dialogue and a great lead performance. See it.