Maybe it’s the 140-minute run time that finds itself languid with a dearth of excitement and suspense. Maybe its the backdrop of sunny southern California as a setting, which comes as the complete opposite of the typical dark and brooding streets of New York. Maybe it’s director Barry Levinson and his tactical focus on the love affair between 1940s rising Hollywood starlet Virginia Hill and infamous gangster Benjamin Siegel. Whatever it may be, the 1991 effort “Bugsy” just doesn’t succeed as a mob movie. And forget that it won two trivial Academy Awards (Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design) – frankly, it doesn’t succeed as a romance or drama either.
While other period focused mob movies show the beginning of metropolises like New York and Chicago, complete with ominous skies and hundred floor towers, “Bugsy” is set in the dawn of Hollywood and the intriguing start of the motion picture era. Despite being based on the real life exploits and travels of the titular gangster, the movie appears to be just that – a movie – and you never really get the sense that the events actually took place at one point in history.
“Bugsy” deploys a great cast, and the opening credits seemingly prepare you for an exciting mob movie as they are uniquely dispersed amongst clips of Siegel (Warren Beatty) and his daily life. He’s feared but seemingly fair. He’s learning to master English. He’s a romancer. He has utter disdain for his well known nickname.
An interesting facet is that the story shows the collaboration between the Jewish and Italian mafias. Heading the Jewish outfit is Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) who, like always, delivers a great performance. The mistake is that Kingsley and his character don’t get enough screen time, which is quite a feat seeing that the movie is 2.5 hours long. Early scenes depict meetings over cigars and tumblers filled with whisky. Levinson demonstrates that the ability is there, but lets it get out of reach when the mob starts moving in on business ventures in southern California.
Warren Beatty is more movie star than actor. He’s never met a camera he didn’t like, and has doubtless shared a bed with dozens if not hundreds of beautiful women over the many decades his career has spanned. That said, he simply can’t pull off the role of ruthless mafia criminal. Beatty comes across as too much of a leading man, and whether its a scene where the dapper mobster critiques another mans shoes, or the way he delivers a line about how trivial money is to him – “It’s just dirty paper. I’ll make more” – you walk away just not quite believing him.
The New York portion of the film is great, with the typical mob movie setting of smoke filled lounges, trench coats, and classic cars. The dealings of Meyer Lansky and Charles “Lucky” Luciano are a thing of beauty, but once the story goes to Los Angeles, you feel like you are watching just another movie.
Aside from Kingsley, legendary actor Harvey Keitel perfectly plays ruthless hitman Mickey Cohen, while great character actors Elliot Gould and Joe Mantegna add depth, but again all are drowned out on screen by the bigger than life Beatty.
While there are a few violent type scenes one would come to expect from a film of this nature, the majority of the story is the exceedingly boring love affair between Siegel and actress Virginia Hill (Annette Bening). But honestly, who cares? Most people don’t want to see a poorly acted version of Romeo and Juliet when checking out a movie based on gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Another area missed – he hates being called Bugsy, but aside from several garrulous rants about why, they never take the few seconds to explain how he got the notorious nickname.
“Bugsy” would be serviceable if they cut out 45 minutes of lustful nonsense, but they didn’t. Its bad as a mob movie, and not much better as anything else.
by – Matt Christopher
