Bullets Over Broadway Review
by Scott Renshaw (AS DOT IDC AT forsythe DOT stanford DOT edu)November 3rd, 1994
BULLETS OVER BROADWAY
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Viterelli, Jack Warden.
Screenplay: Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath.
Director: Woody Allen.
Over the last few years, no filmmaker's work has been linked as closely to his personal life as Woody Allen's has been. 1992's HUSBANDS AND WIVES focused on troubled marriages, and showed Allen's character infatuated with a much younger woman; the parallels to Allen's life were hard to ignore. Last year's MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY was the kind of light comedy Allen hadn't made in years, and seemed to indicate a desire to return to simpler times. BULLETS OVER BROADWAY is another comedy, but it's no pure lark. Hilarious as it is, it's also a sly bit of self-mockery, an indication that Allen the artist acknowledges the foibles of Allen the man.
Set in Prohibition-era New York, BULLETS OVER BROADWAY is the story of David Shayne (John Cusack), an earnest young playwright whose two previous flops are making it difficult for him to find backing for his latest play, "God of Our Fathers." An opportunity presents itself when mobster Nick Valenti (Joe Viterelli) offers to provide all necessary backing for the play, provided one of the roles goes to his talentless, would-be actress girlfriend Olive (Jennifer Tilly). David is consumed by the idea that he has sold out, but the worst is yet to come. As rehearsals progress, it becomes clear that there are problems with the play, and the solutions come from an unlikely source -- Olive's bodyguard Cheech (Chazz Palminteri).
Those who found they needed Dramamine to cope with the hyperkinetic camera movement in HUSBANDS AND WIVES and MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY will be delighted to learn that Allen lays off the hand-held. In fact, his direction seems a bit too constrained at times, as though the theater itself were creating a kind of claustrophobia. But while this is far from Allen's best work as a director, his script, co-written by Douglas McGrath, is fantastic. The dialogue contains as many laugh-out-loud lines as any film this year, and the plot takes at least one twist so delightfully unexpected that its revelation may provide the single biggest laugh. In a year woefully short on good comedies, BULLETS OVER BROADWAY may be a saving grace.
As usual, Allen has a marvelous ensemble cast at his disposal to bring his script to life, though not all are equally well-used. Jim Broadbent and Tracey Ullman, as two of the play's cast members, are basically one-note types; John Cusack has some marvelous early scenes as he realizes the kind of person he is dealing with in Nick, but his character gets lost in the shuffle a bit. Jennifer Tilly, however, is dead solid perfect as the simple-minded Olive, and Rob Reiner has a wonderful bit part as a pretentious playwright who takes great pride in the fact that "both intellectuals and common people find (his plays) completely impenetrable." But the two showcase roles belong to Dianne Wiest and Chazz Palminteri. As Helen Sinclair, the play's haughty star, Wiest brings down the house with her manipulations of David to spice up her character, and her cry of "Don't speak!" Palminteri is even better as Cheech, a career hood who discovers his latent talent, and that he'll do anything to protect his creation. It's a wonderful, subtle performance worthy of Oscar consideration.
Yet beneath all the laughs in BULLETS OVER BROADWAY is a moral question framed by the Reiner character's hypothetical question of which you would save from a burning building: the last copy of Shakespeare's works, or some anonymous person. "The artist creates his own moral universe," he says, but the turns of the story work against that notion. Better to be a good man than a great artist, Allen seems to argue, and it's difficult not to read that thesis as a minor mea culpa for his tabloid-headline exploits. In the course of exorcising some of his own demons, accompanied by a laugh track, Allen has created one of his post purely entertaining films in years.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 rehearsals: 8.
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Scott Renshaw
Stanford University
Office of the General Counsel
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