J. Money's Movies

Bulworth
Directed by Warren Beatty
20th Century Fox, 1998

$$1/2

The idea of a white guy rapping wasn't funny when Jim Belushi did it on SNL back in the '80s, it wasn't funny when Vanilla Ice did it years later (not intentionally anyway) and it's not funny now. Yet, that's the big joke behind the very gimmicky political comedy Bulworth. I could have lived a long fulfilling life without seeing the 60-something Warren Beatty doing his gangsta-schtick; it's painful to watch and not very amusing.

Too bad, because the movie does make some sharp, if obvious, observations about the flaws of our political system. And the film's first gimmick: Beatty as a politician so crazy he actually tells the truth, even if it makes himself look bad -- is fun to watch. But when that idea is abandoned in favor of Beatty as the rapping Senator, I started to cringe. Throw in a predictable ending you can see coming right down Pennsylvania avenue and you have a movie that doesn't get my vote.

Email: jasonrothman@yahoo.com