BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (1994)
A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003
Woody Allen is not only talented, but also a very prolific filmmaker. His career, especially in the latter stages, when the audience and critics became used to his style and themes, was always under the risk of each new film being indistinguishable from the other. Allen was quite aware of this, so he tried to put some refreshing variations to the formula. While making BULLETS OVER BROADWAY in 1994 he decided to stay behind the camera and allow his standard character of neurotic New York intellectual to be played by someone else.
That someone else was John Cusack. In BULLETS OVER BROADWAY he plays David Shayne, young New York playwright who desperately wants to succeed in 1920s Broadway. After two successive flops, he reluctantly agrees that his next play be financed by New York mobster Nick Valenti (played by Joe Viterelli). In return for financial services, Valenti insists that his girlfriend Olive Neal (played by Jennifer Tilly) gets the part. It soon turns out that Olive Neal is not only unsuitable for the role, but also a dreadful actress. As Shayne struggles to reconcile his financial needs with artistic integrity, another, more talented actress Helen Sinclair (played by Diane Wiest) demands that her role gets improved. In the meantime, Cheech (played by Chazz Palminteri), Valenti's goon hired to watch over Olive, gets more and more affected with the dreadful stuff that he saw during rehearsals and decides to do something about it.
BULLETS OVER BROADWAY explores one of those eternal dilemmas - whether the abstract ideals of Art have more value over prosaic and more concrete Life. Various characters answer those questions in different ways, and it is real fun to see how that plays out in painstakingly recreated world of 1920s Broadway. The fun comes from the group of very talented actors who play those characters. The best of them is Chazz Palminteri in the most complex role of a street hoodlum who accidentally discovers new talent. In the hands of any other actor, this transformation would be laughable, but Palminetri gives it credibility. Diane Wiest is also very good as alcoholic diva. Unfortunately, some actors aren't that good, especially Jennifer Tilly who went over the top in her portrayal of talentless bimbo. Photography by Carlo di Palma is too dark at times, and the scenes depicting gangland shootings (responsible for BULLETS OVER BROADWAY having higher bodycount than much more notorious PULP FICTION) are too repetitive to serve any purpose. Yet, despite those flaws, BULLETS OVER BROADWAY is very entertaining film that could be recommended even to those viewers who aren't Woody Allen fans.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
Review written on February 14th 2003
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm - Movie Reviews in English http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society
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