Rating: 
Summary: Expect a doozy fare, and you'll enjoy...
Review: ...otherwise, you run the risk of disappointment. The first 10 minutes or so are riveting. A california state senate candidate has a death wish, being disillusioned with the filthy shenanigans of politics. Instead of committing suicide he plots his own assassination. Given his imminent death he gives himself a free reign during his final speech in the african-american rally in LA where he answers a question about "Where are your promises of insurance benefits for us black people?" with an unadorned tirade -- "Why should you guys matter? 50% of your kids are unemployed, and the other 50% are in jail". This is followed by an utterly irreverent anti-Semitic take during a meeting with media barons (all Jewish, of course). Such whimsical behavior in fact leaves the senator feeling so liberated that his death wish vanishes, and the movie turns into a frantic chase to track down his anointed assassin and cancel the plans. This lends the movie some of its hilarious moments and what could even have been an adorable pace. But the movie and its pace are thrown to the wind as we quickly get swamped with empathetic odes to negro stereotypes -- young black kids under 10 years of age selling dope on the streets using F-words as punctuation, abject poverty (15 people in a small shoddy home for e.g.), rusty cars from 1625 A.D. for the black folk but Rolls limos for everyone else, white cops badgering the afrincan-american drug salesmen and the kids of course replying in an F-laden rants with allusion to parental family members etc etc. As though this was not enough, a dreadful overdose of rap music compounds our woes (no no, I love rap music with a capital C) with the possible exception of Ghetto Superstar (yeah). Even the senator develops a rap-tongue and cannot seem to speak in anything but rhyme, whether on TV or in private tete-a-tetes with Halle Berry. Beatty's wrinkles show up in this movie but do little to add to his expressionless expressions, although he is convincing in his role. Halle Berry is confident as usual, but in her african-women-can-be-intelligent-too anti-stereotype role, seems to have a medical inability to smile because, clearly, intelligent people are always serious. The senator's chief of staff campaigner has a perpetual frown with all this bizzare callousness, which is somewhat grating. Everyone else does his/her job well - no more no less. Overall, a unique theme with a lot of promise that could easily have been a 5/5 material had Beatty not been so smitten with his inane takes on the minority agenda. Still worth a watch if you are interested in (what is almost) a "political satire".
Rating: 
Summary: A sincere movie with no target demographic.
Review: A politician has nothing left to lose -- so why not speak the truth? Warren Beatty's Senator Jay Bulworth lays down the smack: the reason the working man (in this movie, the working class is cleverly disguised as hip-hop mavens) doesn't have a voice, is he doesn't have the sway or monetary bullocks to *buy* a voice. Words aren't worth a penny unless you're worth billions. And of course, from the first instant, this divine fool's failure is certain and imminent: Big Business, what with its grimy fingers perpetually immersed in the U.S. Government's proverbial tub of crunchy Jif, would never allow a politician like Bulworth to succeed, at the risk of the working class' newfound capacity to leech the power from the insurance companies and tire manufacturers. But here's the best part: this poor movie didn't stand a chance of finding a target demographic, just as we know from the first instant Bulworth doesn't stand a chance, either. The movie's occasionally bawdy humor is poised to captivate, paradoxically, *my* demographic (19-year olds who appreciate taboos about racial tension), while its sad, sad message is better suited to working class families who "get it," rather than to, say, people who rent movies all the time, or play the stock market, or capitalize on apathy. In that respect, Bulworth is a sad story, indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: Ghetto Senator
Review: This movie is about a Senator who gets fed up with lying to the people. However it is a movie that is a matter of taste. If you are sensitive regarding racial issues this is certainly not the picture for you. If you like racially laced humor and politics you will probably like this movie, if not fall in love with it. Warren Beatty is excellent in his role as senator Bulworth and Oliver Platt is a riot as Bulworth's campaign manager. Halle Berry is still the most beautiful women in the world...showing that she can make even a totally straight laced senator turn ghetto. It's got it's ups and downs and craziness...some humor and even some surprises. I thought the ending was somewhat surprising.
Rating:
Summary: Screwball Tragedy
Review: Beatty's suicidal Senator Bulworth takes out a contract on his own life, decides he wants to renege, unbeknowingly falls for one of the plotters(Halle Berry)... Etctera, etctera. Beatty even jumps nervously when cars backfire: it's that kind of schtick. But the film's premise does allow Bulworth to sound off on all the most deserving topics (the corporate hegemony, the ghettoization of black Americans). With nothing to lose, he's free to speak his mind, free to blast the mainstream's illusions about an "inclusive America." The observations are short but never superficial, merely concise. Bulworth graduates from soundbytes to a hilarious series of raps -- a conceptual coup, both for Bulworth and for the film. The senator's honesty leads to his assassination. We knew it would: Beatty's been gunned down again and again in his films, ever since the big machine-gun finale of 'Bonnie & Clyde.' And not only in films where you'd expect it, like 'Bugsy' and 'The Parallax View,' but even in 'Heaven Can Wait'! Anyone see a complex here? 'Bulworth' was one of a late-90s trio of savvy political satires (the other two were 'Wag the Dog' and 'Primary Colors'), none of which found an audience. Too bad, because the film's final words, delivered by an elderly transient directly to the camera, should be taken to heart by all Americans: "You've got to be a spirit -- you can't be no ghost."
Rating:
Summary: Beatty stands by his old left beliefs
Review: Warren Beatty is a curious character. He is that old style, A-list, Hollywood star who can wear his left-wing credentials on his sleeve and still be able to call the shots. Few others would have been in a position to make this movie. Senator Bulworth is running for re-election at the same time that he has a nervous breakdown. As corporate America queues up to buy his influence, his liberal past gazes down with disapproval at him from the photos on the wall - Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy. Sickened by the way he has sold out to the power elite, he arranges for his assassination so that his daughter can claim the life insurance. Once this is set up and he is dragged around the election circuit, he feels a great weight off his shoulders and he starts speaking his mind rather than the usual platitudes: He tells audiences that he acts for corporate America because they have the money - the people don't; medicine will never be socialised in America because the insurance corporations want to hold on to their profits; and government will never act on behalf of black people because black people lack all financial clout. Pretty radical stuff. Unfortunately, Bulworth is not good cinema. The story is hackneyed and unbelievable. It's basically a third rate thriller with left-wing politics dumped into it. The Battle of Algiers it is not. However, Bulworth still entertains. If the story does not convince, at least the pace never slackens. Certainly, Beatty deserves credit for remaining true to his political beliefs when many others have long since abandoned commitment to anything other than chasing the almighty dollar.
Rating: 
Summary: racist, socialist nonsense
Review: This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Beatty, a wealthy playboy, tries to paint all whites as willingly racist and stepping on the poor, while at the same time demonstrating anti-semitism. Nice divisive garbage, Beatty. Not funny. Not relevant or at all honest.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the politcally faint of heart
Review: First of all, let me state that while I liked this movie it does have many problems and I agree with the more intelligent negative reviews that it has received. But "Bulworth" appealed to me not so much because it provided the right answers but because it asked the right questions. It did so in a humorous, "no holds barred" fashion that is equally likely to alienate the right wing bigot as the politically correct campus moron. "Bulworth" is about a politician whose failed personal life and hypocritical political one compels him to kill himself. He puts a contract out on his life and while he's waiting to be knocked off he's suddenly free to say whatever he wants. And so he does. During a 72-hour insomnia marathon, Bulworth ditches his canned speeches, and sound bites and instead says what's really on his mind. He tells a black church that he doesn't really care about their vote because they are black. He tells a Jewish group that you can't run for office without appeasing the Jews. He drinks whiskey during a political debate and explains to the camera that he doesn't care. Sound like Jack Nicholoson is running for office? Not exactly. Bullworth also falls in love with a black woman and becomes exposed to a different world of rap clubs, armed kids selling drugs, and police brutality. I can understand where a lot of reviewers got turned off here. Yes, the black gang leader and white racist cops are stereotypes. And yes, Bulworth's journey into this world is just too smooth and easy. But to the film's credit, real issues of racism, crime, and poverty are handled in a blunt unsentimental fashion that somehow avoids the in-your-face brutality that often comes with realism. When Bulworth intervenes to prevent youthful drug sellers from being bullied by the police his actions and motive come from practical benevolence instead of a self-righteous crusade. One of the funniest and most powerful moments of the film occurs when Bulworth asks the armed prepubescent drug sellers "shouldn't you be eating ice cream instead of being out here?" In the next scene, Bulworth buys the kids-guns and all-ice cream cones. The film is telling us in the simplest and least didactic manner that these are just kids. They should be leading a normal child's life, not a life of crime. Bulworth's relationship with various characters and the events that transpire are unbelievable to a large degree, but this isn't a documentary. It's a film that exposes a problem and raises questions about how to solve it. The problem is political hypocrisy. All of the politicians who are driven by corporate money and surveys have no interest in solving real problems. At the same time, the excuse of the crime boss, that at least he's providing children with some degree of wealth by employing them to sell drugs is exposed for the self-serving lie that it is. At the end of the film, Bulworth doesn't save the world and things don't magically work out. Once he comes down from his insomnia and manic speech acts he has to face the world as an uniformed politician again. But his transformation is real. As he leaves the black woman's house looking almost ashamed to be there he turns and asks "are you coming?" Then he explains that he loves her but he's insecure about being White. He isn't' a superman whose been transformed by his experiences, but he has grown and one senses that whatever he does it will be a meaningful compromise between the sellout politics of his past and the shock value activities of his recent experiences. The black crime boss must also compromise if he is to truly change things in his neighborhood for the better. In order to make meaningful changes in his community, he must maintain his ruthless reputation to some degree, but now he dose so as a self-conscious facade. I agree that Warren Beaty's rapping was sub par, but who cares? "Bulworth" makes a powerful statement that in order to transcend problems of crime, poverty, racism, and political corruption we are going to have to take a cold hard look at who we really are and what is really happening around us. Accepting other people--particularly from different racial and economic backgrounds--has to be more than just an insincere speech act. It must be an act of good will that is grounded in practical reality.
Rating:
Summary: Pleasantly surprised
Review: I'm sure most of us saw the trailer or the ad: a California politician suddenly starts being politically incorrect and shocks the press and his supporters (really funny, guys...ha ha). But the movie was actually both more funny and poignant than what those advertisments suggested. Warren Beatty's character is initially suicidal as he is forced to a platform that is far too conservative for his actual views. The senator essentially tosses away his prepared speeches and begins to speak extemporaneously in brash terms. He had already hired someone to kill him so what's he to loose? Though not politically correct, he does speak out for the plight of the poor and condemns unsavory government practices. He quickly gains support from some inner-city girls who are tired of the B.S. from the conventional politicians and his popularity begins to snowball. There was one song that was particularly appealing too. You may want to consider buying the soundtrack as well.
Rating:
Summary: still funny and true in 2003
Review: While very funny, and Halle is very sexy, and the song Ghetto Supastar still a classic (so the movie is very entertaining), still the movie's theme is powerful. It motivates one to get up and change the world, rather than letting it decay into crime and corruption. I liked the way that criminals are related to politicians, equally to blame for the mess.
Rating:
Summary: Ghetto Superstar!
Review: A senator has lost his desire to campaign for office and to live. He blasts Hollywood, specific communities and the media because he doesn't care anymore. Jay Bulworth (Warren Beatty) raps and declares obscenity a way of life. Listen foo, you got to tell it how it is. You gotta drop the next tizzy on the nizzy. Fo sho. "Bulworth" really is a good movie that expresses freedom of speech and crosses the boundary of unity within other cultures. You feel it dawg? Halle Berry also stars. Children use foul language and eat ice cream. Bulworth raps some more. What more do you want? Funny.
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