BULWORTH (1998) ***1/2 Passionate love triangle between Warren Beatty, the United States of America , and social justice. Warren wins on so many levels you can't count them. I can't name a film at once so entertaining, witty, intellectual, and visionary. Perk up your ears every time Iraq is mentioned. Of course no one would have time for all of the pontificating and prosyltizing ("Socialism!" Warren nearly drools into the camera, and replays the scene, though more as supporting evidence than summation) if it wasn't all so damn funny. Yes, yes, the idea of a senator having a breakdown in which his insane behaviour manifests itself in a pathological and cathartic diarrhoea of the truth is funny enough, the problem being how to pull it off without undue pedagogy or doofiness. Warren, as perhaps the silver screen's greatest and most profound embodiment of effortless cool, simply doesn't notice the potential problems as he scampers about rapping and vamping and generally offering compelling evidence that we're all (well, 99.5% of us) getting politically screwed and that anyone who really wanted to could do better. Halle Berry is entirely convincing as a waif of a ghetto homegirl, at once wise and innocent and jaded and seductive, and all street chic and elegant. Winning counterpoint to Christine Baranski, the perfect embodiment of the egocentric, materialistic political wife-bitch. Who do you want to work with? For all the great scenes and tremendous performances in every role (Amiri Baraka is channelling Saint Peter, I think), for all of Warren's dominance of the screen and script and intellectual arena and comedic ward and Hollywood style for the ages…I think that the single scene that's stayed with me is where Halle's homegirls are singing Beethoven's "Joyful, Joyful" with all sincerity and rhythmed out complexity, and it's confusing the hell into the whitebread parishoners, irritating aggravating, make them go away. Arise, my friends, be a spirit not a ghost.
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