Tag: Ben Kingsley

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021, Destin Daniel Cretton)

The third act of Shang-Chi makes it real obvious what’s been wrong with the movie the whole time–it doesn’t matter if Simu Liu is onscreen. The third act has a bunch of different characters fighting a bunch of different bad guys, and Liu disappears for a few minutes to do the whole “how’s the hero going to get inspired from the edge of death” bit and… the movie doesn’t need him. Because even though Liu’s Shang-Chi, the star, he’s never the interesting character in a scene.

The film starts with Tony Leung Chiu-wai (who apparently spoke English this whole time, which is devastating because he finally “comes” to America, and it’s this movie). He’s a near-immortal warlord who wants to capture a mythic village so he can see dragons or something. It’s an Alexander wept moment, don’t ask questions. Leung gives a captivating performance in an absolutely crap part. He went nine hundred and seventy-five years without ever doing any character development, and now he’s rushing to get some in.

Anyway. Still the opening. Leung meets Fala Chen in the village, and they have a wuxia fight. Or at least as close as Shang-Chi gets to a wuxia fight. Director Cretton at least tries with this fight. None of the other fight scenes in Shang-Chi have any real… what’s the word. Effort. The other fights don’t have a style goal. Or at least they don’t have a visible style goal. If Cretton was actually going for something, it’d be worse because he, cinematographer Bill Pope, and the three editors (Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, Nat Sanders, and Harry Yoon) never achieve it. Or even make it clear they’ve got actual ambitions other than getting to the next scene.

Leung and Chen fall in love, and throughout the film—via flashbacks—we learn he gave up a life of international crime bossing for her, settled down, had a couple kids who grow up to be Liu and Meng’er Zhang. Chen dies under mysterious circumstances, but only to the audience; it’s just the flashback doesn’t want to tell us yet. Because Dave Callaham and Cretton’s script is tediously manipulative. There aren’t any surprises in Shang-Chi, which just makes it all the more amazing it’s able to get to so many compelling moments thanks to the cast and, I don’t know, a competent production’s momentum. And it’s a low competent. Like, Disney did not pony up for real effects money on Shang-Chi. The composites are so bad it’s almost a Warner Bros. superhero movie. Almost.

In the present, Liu’s a San Francisco valet parker who spends all his time hanging out with best friend, Awkwafina. They’re just friends. It’s never explained why they’re just friends, possibly because Liu, Awkwafina, and Zhang are weirdly asexual, but they basically lead this amusing sitcom life. Just with fast cars. What’s weird about the Liu and Awkwafina stuff is the actors can obviously do comedy—Awkwafina from this movie and, you know, Liu from “Kim’s”—but Cretton doesn’t know how to do it. Or more, he doesn’t try to do it. It’s the aforementioned lack of effort kicking in again. Instead of it actually being funny, it’s a too-brief nod at funny.

Really quickly, Liu has to fight some bad guys on a bus, which ends up forecasting Cretton’s inability to do action sequences, and then he and Awkwafina are off to Macau to meet up with previously unrevealed sister Zhang.

They then meet up with dad Leung, who reveals he’s going to go get all the dinosaurs from Isla Sorna. Sorry, wait, I’m thinking Lost World: Jurassic Park but Cretton cribs a scene from there, so I got confused. Leung wants to invade the village and rescue the soul of dead wife Chen from the shitty villagers who wouldn’t let them live there because he’s a warlord.

Even though Awkwafina’s already the comic relief, they need more, so Ben Kingsley comes back from Iron Man 3 (more specifically, the superior Marvel short, All Hail the King), and occasional smiles occur during the subsequent action. Up until they get to the secret village, where Michelle Yeoh enters the movie, and all of a sudden, it’s interesting. Because even though Leung’s mesmerizing, it’s a lousy part. Yeoh’s part isn’t good, but it’s not a terribly underwritten villain part. She’s the cool aunt. She’s basically the hero of the last third of the runtime.

Eventually, Liu will be critical in saving the world from dragons or whatever, but he doesn’t have to act while doing it. Most of the time, he’s just a part-CGI model in extreme long shot.

There’s no one who doesn’t take over the scenes with Liu. Awkwafina from go, then Zhang, then Leung, then Yeoh, but also the supporting actors in scenes, like bit player Ronny Chieng. There’s an astounding lack of direction from Cretton when it comes to his actors. All of them muscle through—I mean, relatively, like Zhang’s likable but not particularly good and Awkwafina is one-note—just not Liu. He’s so unimportant in his own movie it can lose him, and it doesn’t matter, which makes the hero’s quest finale all the more lackluster.

Shang-Chi’s never bad—it’s incredibly safe—but it feels like it’s never bad because Cretton and company figured out a way to produce the film without any stakes. Certainly not for Cretton. Or Liu.

For a specific viewer, Leung will more than make it worth it. Even when he becomes CGI. Or more, he doesn’t become CGI for long enough for it to hurt him. Ditto Yeoh, actually, whose big action sequence ends up being as a too-small CGI model. Then there’s Kingsley; his return is fun but underwritten because Cretton and Callaham are dreadful at comedy.

Also, since the flashbacks to Chen’s story go on for so long—it’s third act before we get the whole story and the movie completely, and very intentionally wimps out on the implications—even though Chen’s okay, she just reminds if they’d gotten Maggie Cheung for the part… I mean, then you’d have a movie worth Tony Leung Chiu-wai. But no. Because it’s a rote and joyless outing, albeit an aridly competent one.

Night Hunter (2018, David Raymond)

The first act of Night Hunter, which is just as stupid as the film’s original title, Nomis, but has nothing to do with the movie itself—unless Night Hunter refers to “lead” Henry Cavill, who at one point tells his daughter, played by Emma Tremblay, how he was a great SWAT cop until she was born. Now, Cavill’s thirty-five or so and Tremblay’s like fourteen so he and ex-wife Minka Kelly had her pretty young. And Cavill was already a SWAT bad ass when he was twenty. He’s also British and living in Minneapolis-St. Paul because that sort of thing makes sense in Night Hunter—I mean, also British Ben Kingsley was… a local judge.

If Night Hunter had just had the stones to embrace it’s Canadian heritage instead of pretending it takes place in the Twin Cities, which are a really dangerous place but also have the highest tech police department in the world—wait. I was talking about the first act.

Sorry.

The movie’s stupid in some amusing ways. Lots of potential tangents.

But the first act. The first act is fairly… engaging? I mean, it’s about tortured super cop Cavill who works homicide and seems really smart. Cavill doesn’t give a good performance—he doesn’t give a terrible one, we’ll get to the terrible ones in a bit—but he’s really good at acting smart. It might also be because he’s British. It might also be because he’s British and makes the dumb dialogue sound authoritative and all the other people, save Kingsley, are not British and speaking stupid dialogue and, therefore, do not sound authoritative. There’s a lot going wrong at once in Night Hunter. Makes for interesting fails; fails because nothing writer, director, and co-producer Raymond does succeeds. The one big plot twist isn’t as dumb as the alternative he’d been hinting at for a while. I suppose that statement is complementary.

Let me back up. The movie starts with a woman killing herself instead of being recaptured by the guy chasing her. Cavill’s the homicide cop. Meanwhile, Kingsley and Eliana Jones are vigilantes who castrate sexual predators. Kingsley’s a former judge who’s gone dark after his family got killed. Jones is a sexual abuse survivor. She’s bait. It’s a good setup and, frankly, a lot of fun to watch. Kingsley’s a good heavy. And Jones gives the best performance in the film. She gives a bit wider of a performance than Kingsley or Stanley Tucci, but her part’s better and Jones tries harder. Eventually, Cavill crosses paths with Kingsley and Jones and soon they’ve teamed up to find the killer.

And they catch him right away. Brendan Fletcher is the killer. Only once they lock him up and Cavill’s ex-girlfriend turned believer-in-multiple-personalities profiler Alexandra Daddario interviews Fletcher. Fletcher’s the intellectually, mildly physically disabled super-killer who took out however many women before they finally caught him, from his bad guy mansion out in the woods. Daddario’s convinced it’s multiple personalities, Cavill thinks Fletcher’s faking it, Kingsley and Jones are out of the movie for a while, and Stanley Tucci comes in to yell. It’s a terribly written part for Tucci but he weathers it.

But Fletcher and Daddario are godawful. Night Hunter has got no chance after they start sparring, these two actors unable to breathe life into a crappy script. The film finds its ceiling and for most of the second act, Daddario is slamming her head against it as she tries to unlock Fletcher’s secrets. Very, very stupidly. Because it’s a stupid script. The third act has its surprise, but it doesn’t get any smarter. It’s also not like Cavill turns out to be much of a Sherlock Holmes; maybe the implications in the first act really were just because of the accent. He catches on to everything after the audience. It’s almost like Raymond promises he’s going to be really, really stupid and then when he’s just really stupid instead, he treats it like a victory lap.

The end’s bad. Good special effects but still a bad ending.

Raymond doesn’t appear to direct his actors. Most of them don’t actually need it, but the most important ones definitely do—Fletcher, Daddario, Cavill (though Cavill’s more just absurdly miscast). The supporting cast is mostly solid. Nathan Fillion’s one of the other cops because he owed someone a favor or just really likes Winnipeg; he’s fine. Daniela Lavender’s the CSI. She’s more good than fine. She makes her expository scenes rather believable, even lending credibility to Cavill. But it doesn’t really matter because once the second act hits… it’s just Fletcher and Daddario and the occasional incredible set piece. See, Fletcher’s such a mastermind, he’s killing cops while he’s locked up with explosives and poison gas and whatever else.

Still, Night Hunter’s far from unwatchable. Michael Barrett’s photography is good, even when Raymond’s composition is bad. It’s not incompletely produced or anything, it’s just not well-directed or well-written or well-acted. But it’s not… embarrassing for some of the people involved. Jones’s quite good. Tremblay’s far better than the film desires. Kingsley’s decent. It’s unexceptionally bad.

All Hail the King (2014, Drew Pearce)

It's too bad All Hail the King wasn't the epilogue to Iron Man 3. It's a continuation of Ben Kingsley's story from that film and it's the best thing out of Marvel. At fourteen minutes.

Writer-director Drew Pearce only has three scenes in the film–he uses a montage opening to establish, so maybe three and a half. He gives Kingsley a bunch of great lines and a fantastic plot. It eventually follows up on elements from all three Iron Man movies. It's a humorous wink at the idea of dropped subplots and forgotten supporting characters.

In addition to the dialogue and the acting–Scoot McNairy and Lester Speight are also great–Pearce's direction is outstanding. He has numerous jokes throughout, often letting them develop from a dramatic situation. That approach works perfectly with Kingsley's British stage boob.

While it's a showcase for Kingsley, it's equally one for Pearce. King is near perfect.

Without a Clue (1988, Thom E. Eberhardt)

Without a Clue has an amusing premise–what if Sherlock Holmes is a buffoon and Dr. Watson is the genius–and generally succeeds in executing it. Director Eberhardt brings very little to the film (one wonders if his single goal was keeping Michael Caine in the center of each frame), but the production is handsomely enough mounted, even if there is a lack of scope. Most of the film’s action takes place indoors, where Eberhardt goes for cheap laughs. Outdoors, at least, Alan Hume’s cinematography gets to breath.

Caine is hilarious as Holmes, but he’s nothing compared to Ben Kingsley as Watson. Kingsley brings intelligence, suffering and sympathy to the role, while still maintaining a commanding lead presence. Unfortunately–except for Peter Cook in a bit part and Nigel Davenport in a slightly bigger one–the rest of the cast has little to offer.

That problem is two fold. The script gives the supporting players, except Pat Keen, almost nothing to do. Watching third-billed Jeffrey Jones run about is painful, especially since his comic scenes are so poorly written and Jones loses his forced accent explicitly during his comic scenes. Lysette Anthony is mostly useless as the damsel in distress, though she does some quality; it seems Clue failed her.

Henry Mancini’s score is a lot of fun for the period; Mancini excels at the comedy scenes. He doesn’t do so well for the action-packed finale, but neither does Eberhardt so no foul.

Clue‘s a lot of fun.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Thom E. Eberhardt; written by Gary Murphy and Larry Strawther, based on characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle; director of photography, Alan Hume; edited by Peter Tanner; music by Henry Mancini; production designer, Brian Ackland-Snow; produced by Marc Stirdivant; released by Orion Pictures.

Starring Michael Caine (Sherlock Holmes), Ben Kingsley (Dr. John Watson), Jeffrey Jones (Inspector Lestrade), Lysette Anthony (Leslie Giles), Paul Freeman (Professor James Moriarty), Nigel Davenport (Lord Smithwick), Pat Keen (Mrs. Hudson), Peter Cook (Norman Greenhough), Tim Killick (Sebastian Moran) and Matthew Savage (Wiggins).

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Iron Man 3 (2013, Shane Black)

Iron Man 3 feels a lot like the end of the series, which isn’t a bad thing–Robert Downey Jr. does the hero’s journey thing quite well–but director Black handles it oddly. After spending the entire movie pairing Downey with buddies, whether love interest Gwyneth Paltrow, sidekicks Don Cheadle and Jon Favreau, his computer and even an adorable little kid, Downey finishes the movie by himself.

But he’s just learned he can’t get by without a little help from his friends.

Anyway, it’s a stumble after an incredibly entertaining couple hours. Even when the film’s being serious–and sometimes even frightening (the villains are quite good)–it’s always a lot of fun. Downey and Paltrow are wonderful together, as usual, and Black never lets it get too somber. The end credits are self-congratulatory in the best way (if playing into the series finale thing a little much).

Cheadle doesn’t have a lot to do–Iron Man 3 could be a lot longer; more movie would plug most of its plot holes (besides Downey going from experienced marksman to novice in twenty minutes)–but he’s good. Ditto for Rebecca Hall as an ex-girlfriend. She and Paltrow get nowhere near enough time together.

The big surprises are Ben Kingsley as the supervillain and Guy Pearce as a business rival. Kingsley’s excellent, but Pearce’s spellbinding. He walks off with the movie. He alone makes it worth seeing.

The only real bad spot is Brian Tyler’s crappy score.

Otherwise, it rocks.

Interview with a Hitman (2012, Perry Bhandal)

It feels like whole parts of Interview with a Hitman are missing. A major supporting character will be revealed in the present action, grown up from a little kid in one scene in the flashback. There’s probably a good ten minutes of exposition missing from the picture.

It might explain why, when it’s not full of bad dialogue, Hitman is such a beautifully made film. Director Bhandal can’t write dialogue whatsoever (he also doesn’t even know when he’s got half a good scene–he just goes on and runs it with more talking), but the plot sometimes feels like After Hours with a hitman. Great music from Dan Teicher, just phenomenal. Hitman works best when there’s no talking, just Teicher’s music, Ben King and Harry Skipp’s sublime editing and Richard Swingle’s lovely photography. It’s like Bhandal realized, in post, he couldn’t tell his story straightforward because of the writing and acting fails, so he let it at least partially succeed through exceptional work from his crew.

Luke Goss plays the lead as an adult and he’s middling. He’s good when he doesn’t have any lines. He’s particularly bad during the terribly written narration. Still, he’s leagues ahead of Elliot Greene, who plays the same character as a child. Greene’s terrible.

Caroline Tillette’s good as Goss’s love interest, Danny Midwinter’s all right, Philip Whitchurch is good.

The obvious finish fails some of the actors’ good work and there’s a lot terrible about it. But there’s a lot good about Hitman too.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Written and directed by Perry Bhandal; director of photography, Richard Swingle; edited by Harry Skipp and Ben King; music by Ben Teicher; production designer, Mickaela Trodden; produced by Dean Fisher; released by Kaleidoscope Film Distribution.

Starring Luke Goss (Viktor), Caroline Tillette (Bethesda), Stephen Marcus (Traffikant), Danny Midwinter (Sergei), Philip Whitchurch (Tosca), Patrick Lyster (Xavier), Ray Panthaki (Franco), Uriel Emil Pollack (Alexandru) and Elliot Greene (Young Viktor).

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Species (1995, Roger Donaldson)

Roger Donaldson has these great sweeping camera shots in Species. He doesn’t restrict them to the action scenes, but uses them to dynamically bring his five principals into the frame together. It’s always beautifully done and, if one could separate Donaldson’s work from the film’s content, Species would seem a lot more impressive.

Unfortunately, the fine work of Donaldson—and editor Conrad Buff IV—is nowhere near enough to forgive the film’s problems.

First and foremost, the script is dumb. An alien civilization dupes the American government into creating an emissary and that emissary will try to wipe out the human race. Now, that idea isn’t dumb, it’s just an idea. Writer Dennis Feldman’s execution of that idea is awful though. The guy can’t write. Though I might just be blaming him more so I don’t have to be so negative about the actors.

Alfred Molina gives a good performance. Marg Helgenberger isn’t bad. Michael Madsen’s awful most of the time, but fine when he and Helgenberger are flirting. It makes one wonder what she’d have been able to do with a better costar.

Ben Kingsley and Forest Whitaker make up the rest of the principal cast. Both are terrible. Kingsley’s unimaginably bad; he’s trying a Southern accent and it fails over and over again. He’s just awful. Whitaker’s problem is the script. His character’s writing is particularly bad.

Speaking of bad, there’s some lame nineties CG in Species too.

Species is a weak film. Great direction, terrible result overall.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Roger Donaldson; written by Dennis Feldman; director of photography, Andrzej Bartkowiak; edited by Conrad Buff IV; music by Christopher Young; production designer, John Muto; produced by Feldman and Frank Mancuso Jr.; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring Ben Kingsley (Xavier Fitch), Michael Madsen (Preston Lennox), Alfred Molina (Dr. Stephen Arden), Forest Whitaker (Dan Smithson), Marg Helgenberger (Dr. Laura Baker), Natasha Henstridge (Sil) and Michelle Williams (Young Sil).

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Slipstream (1989, Steven Lisberger)

A lot of Slipstream plays like The Road Warrior with gliders. In this post-apocalyptic wasteland, everyone flies around because of a jet stream ravaging the surface. It’s never clear where this jet stream is located and not, in a geographic sense, because they always manage to safely take off and land… while at other times it’s so bad it blows things apart.

Lisberger doesn’t know how to operate on a small budget; the film looks awful because of his composition. It doesn’t help his cinematographer, Frank Tidy, is incompetent. Long sequences are completely incomprehensible because Tidy doesn’t give them enough light and Lisberger doesn’t know how to shoot in cramped spaces.

But the big problem is Tony Kayden’s script. How a producer like Gary Kurtz didn’t know he had a bad script is beyond me. The dialogue’s so bad, it makes me wonder if it wasn’t intended to be a kids’ movie… only one rampant with Bill Paxton’s character’s misogyny.

The acting is, similarly, bad. I suppose Bob Peck is all right. His part is terribly written, but Peck’s abilities are enough he can turn in a dignified performance. Paxton is playing Hudson from Aliens again, just with long hair. Mark Hamill is hilariously bad. Kitty Aldridge and Eleanor David are weak too. Ben Kingsley’s awful in an unrecognizable cameo.

Even the Elmer Bernstein is bad—well, half of it. The other half is actually quite good.

On the other hand, the second unit shoots the Irish countryside beautifully.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Steven Lisberger; written by Tony Kayden; director of photography, Frank Tidy; edited by Terry Rawlings; music by Elmer Bernstein; production designer, Andrew McAlpine; produced by Gary Kurtz; released by Entertainment.

Starring Mark Hamill (Tasker), Kitty Aldridge (Belitski), Bill Paxton (Matt Owens), Bob Peck (Byron), Eleanor David (Ariel), Robbie Coltrane (Montclaire), Ben Kingsley (Avatar) and F. Murray Abraham (Cornelius).

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Transsiberian (2008, Brad Anderson)

The train thriller has been a film standard for seventy years, probably longer. I can’t remember the last one, as the genre’s sort of fallen off in the last ten years. The naive American tourist is trouble genre is younger, but not by much. Transsiberian combines the two–a natural combination–but it’s far more of a character study than a thriller, as much of the film hinges on Emily Mortimer’s decision process. Accordingly, the whole thing rests on her and she really isn’t up for it. It’s kind of strange, since she’s a fine physical actress, she’s just never once believable as the recovering substance abuser who’s married an Iowa hardware store owner (Woody Harrelson). Maybe the American accent just put up a wall for her….

Brad Anderson’s approach, both to the storytelling and the direction, is very inventive and not really mainstream, blockbuster Hollywood. So the script itself being as unoriginal in its constant use of standard Hollywood thriller mores is a little strange. It starts with the mysterious, are they or aren’t they bad fellow travelers (Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara). Well, actually it starts with the first Woody Harrelson is a rube because he’s from Iowa joke. There are four or five of them and it’s kind of strange to see a film mock its ostensible protagonist. The film does start differently, however, with an uncritical churchgoers opening scene. It’s kind of nice… maybe all the rube jokes were to make up for it.

Harrelson barely resonates in the film (his character is so one-note), with Noriega dominating the first half as the male presence. Noriega isn’t even particularly good, he just isn’t supposed to be mind-numbingly boring… which is exactly what attracts Mortimer to him.

Here’s where Transsiberian is so interesting–Mortimer’s not at all a good person, which makes her an interesting protagonist. Except the script saddles her with all this unbelievable backstory and it’s all very simplistic. Without the backstory, the film would probably run ten minutes shorter and be a lot less expository.

The script splits the film into two halves–the naive tourist thriller and the train thriller (even though the train’s in the whole movie)–and it works toward making the film more interesting as Mortimer has a lot more to do on her own in the second half and she really just doesn’t cut it.

Ben Kingsley’s got a decent part. Kate Mara isn’t bad. Thomas Kretschmann’s good in what should have been an uncredited cameo.

Alfonso Vilallonga’s score is so good it gets its own paragraph.

As Mortimer essayed the big revelation scene (the first big revelation scene, the last one is actually very quiet as the film excuses all of Mortimer’s actions in the end so she can have a Hollywood ending), I wondered if she was bad or the script was bad. Then I imagined Rose Byrne in her role and Transsiberian would have been excellent. Or really good anyway (Byrne would have been great). Anderson’s always been a competent, cute filmmaker and this one is no different. He usually just casts a little better.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Brad Anderson; written by Anderson and Will Conroy; director of photography, Xavier Giménez; edited by Jaume Martí; music by Alfonso Vilallonga; production designer, Alain Bainée; produced by Julio Fernández; released by First Look Studios.

Starring Woody Harrelson (Roy), Emily Mortimer (Jessie), Kate Mara (Abby), Eduardo Noriega (Carlos), Thomas Kretschmann (Kolzak) and Ben Kingsley (Grinko).

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Bugsy (1991, Barry Levinson), the extended cut

It’s amazing what can be done with cinematography and makeup. In Bugsy, specially lighted and caked with makeup, fifty-something Warren Beatty can play late thirties something Ben Siegel, albeit specially lighted and caked in makeup. The lighting is incredibly distracting, particularly in the scenes where Beatty is the only one getting the attempt at age-defying light. It gives the film a bright orange hue and it really doesn’t need any further attention drawn to Levinson’s almost indifference to its place as a period piece. There’s no texture to Bugsy‘s early 1940s Hollywood. It seems like there should be–had the film been shot on sound stages, it would have added a lot.

The problems are pretty simple. It’s boring and unrewarding. Not in the conclusion, but minute-to-minute. Bugsy is about someone who’s a little nuts and his romance with someone who’s either a little nuts, a lot stupid or deceptive and manipulative. The pair–Beatty and Annette Bening–do not make for a charismatic pair. Bening is mediocre at best. Beatty’s best scenes are with Harvey Keitel (who probably gives the film’s best performance as Mickey Cohen), Ben Kingsley (also mediocre, but his writing is better than Bening’s), Joe Mantegna and, in particular, Elliott Gould. I’ll partially retract my Keitel statement–Gould gives the film’s best performance. As Siegel, Beatty really doesn’t have much to do. When the film tries to give some weight to his suffering, it’s desperate.

The real problem, then, is the script. James Toback, little shock, doesn’t write interesting people and he doesn’t write interesting historical fiction. With such unappealing character arcs, all Bugsy has going for it is the chance at being really good historical fiction. It isn’t. The whole film is based on the premise the movie stars are going to make the uninteresting story–I mean, really, a paragraph could summarize the pertinent action in the film–interesting. It’s also based on the premise, but only at the end and somewhat ludicrously, the audience is supposed to be upset mobster Siegel got a raw deal from the mob. Whoop de doo.

If Levinson had pushed and given the film some visual flare… it wouldn’t have done much good. The Ennio Morricone score, which sounds a lot like all of his other scores from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties, is a poor fit to the material. It’s distracting and goofy.

Still, it’s a competently made Hollywood vanity project (I don’t know who’s vanity, Beatty’s I guess). But it’s an excruciating two and a half hours.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Barry Levinson; screenplay by James Toback, based on a book by Dean Jennings; director of photography, Allen Daviau; edited by Stu Linder; music by Ennio Morricone; production designer, Dennis Gassner; produced by Levinson, Beatty and Mark Johnson; released by Tri-Star Pictures.

Starring Warren Beatty (Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel), Annette Bening (Virginia Hill), Harvey Keitel (Mickey Cohen), Ben Kingsley (Meyer Lansky), Elliott Gould (Harry Greenberg), Joe Mantegna (George Raft), Richard C. Sarafian (Jack Dragna), Bebe Neuwirth (Countess di Frasso), Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi (Count di Frasso), Wendy Phillips (Esta Siegel), Stefanie Mason (Millicent Siegel), Kimberly McCullough (Barbara Siegel), Andy Romano (Del Webb), Robert Beltran (Alejandro), Bill Graham (Charlie Luciano) and Lewis Van Bergen (Joey Adonis).

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