One of Woody Allen's best films of the 90s, Bullets Over Broadway stars John Cusack as a virtual Woody surrogate, a neurotic, Jazz Age writer whose new play sounds wooden and unrealistic to a low-level mobster (Chazz Palminteri) assigned to watch over his boss's actress-girlfriend (Jennifer Tilly). When the hood starts contributing better story ideas and dialogue than what the official playwright can conjure, questions (not unlike those of Amadeus) about the price we pay to make art at the expense of other responsibilities are intriguingly raised. Palminteri gives... a very interesting performance as the enforcer waking up to the desperate (and almost feminine) demands of his own creative psyche, and Dianne Wiest (who won an Oscar), Tracey Ullman, Jim Broadbent and Jennifer Tilly are very funny together playing the ensemble cast of Cusack's play. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com [show more]
In Woody Allen's hilarious "Bullets Over Broadway," John Cusack plays David Shayne, a principled playwright who doesn't want to compromise his writing, but winds up selling out at every turn in order to get his newest play produced. His first compromise comes when he agrees to allow a mobster's girlfriend (Jennifer Tilly) to star in the play so that the gangster will bankroll the production. The film takes this rich potential and runs with it, constantly escalating the subtle humor that arises from Shayne's predicament. The film is populated with a brilliant cast full of comedic talents, some of them surprising. Woody regular Dianne Wiest is especially a revelation. She's always been a remarkable actress, but who would have guessed she was capable of the broadly funny and parodic performance she delivers here? Channeling Gloria Swanson from "Sunset Boulevard," she's simply brilliant and hilarious as the aging Broadway maven Helen Sinclair, vamping wildly and perfectly handling the melodramatic hamminess that Woody requires of her in this role. Chazz Palmintieri is also terrific as Tilly's mob bodyguard, who winds up discovering a previously untapped artistic side of his personality when watching Shayne's play being rehearsed day after day. This film represents Woody still at the peak of his talents, as laugh-out-loud funny as he's ever been, even when he's exploring such deeper questions as the morality of the artist and the relationship between art and commerce.
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