New York, early 20th century. Young playwright David wants to make it to Broadway, but has to make a huge compromise: in order for a gangster, Valenti, to finance his play, David must give a role to the latter's girlfriend Olive, who is an awful actress. However, David is happy that at least he managed to get his idol, actress Helen Sinclair, for the lead role. Olive's bodyguard, gangster Cheech, suggests a few surprisingly good improvements to the play, and quickly advances into the main "ghost writer" for David. In order to complete his work, Cheech even kills Olive and thus enables a better actress to complete the impression, but is killed himself. The play is a hit, but David abandons that life and returns to his girlfriend.
Critics frequently exaggerate Woody Allen's "crisis phase" in the late 80s and early 90s since he managed to direct a great film, "Crimes and Misdemeanors", in between his lesser films from '87 to '91, but they are generally right that "Bullets over Broadway" signalled his "comeback": even though it is set on Broadway, this film obviously has a few poignant references and jabs at the modern filmmaking industry that involves painful compromises (finance through the mafia; accepting a lesser actress) and slyly asks the obvious bigger question, namely is it possible for an author to ever achieve his perfect vision of a story in this world? And are all films and plays just a pale glance of the original idea? Allen has a very elegant execution, allowing for the characters to clash and interact in his own play, and the film has many of his characteristically good comical lines and dialogues ("If you entered a burning building and had the choice, would you save the last copy of Shakespeare's play or some anonymous human being?"; David lamenting that the gangster has an "IQ of minus 50", while in the other moment he writes an endearing letter to actress Helen: "As a small artist to a greater one. That you merely consider my play...").
Rob Reiner almost steals the show in his small role of a philosophical playwright, but the main highlight is Chazz Palminteri as the gangster Cheech who starts out as a brute, but eventually transforms into the creative locomotive in the story when he becomes the "ghost writer" of the play, but generously gives all the credit to David. However, while very good, "Bullets" are still a little bit overrated—they indicate Allen's jokes becoming thin and sitcomish at moments (the black pearls gag is corny, for instance); the last 20-30 minutes of the film are routine and bland, whereas a few "empty walks" show up here and there. The whole movie is congruently directed like a theater play, with wide shots filmed in long takes that last 2-4 minutes, but this would be more effective hadn't Allen directed almost all of his movies like that during that time—while he is evoking the 'golden age of Hollywood' with this, the movie is still directed in a too old-fashioned way. When compared to other movies from the 90s that had a modern style, "Bullets" feel like they are from the past. It's a pity the movie doesn't have a single close up shot of Olive, Helen or Cheech—even "Birdman" was filmed in long takes, but its camera was dynamic and moved, and even zoomed in on its actors during some crucial monologues. In the entire 90s, Allen made only two truly great films: "Husbands and Wives" and "Mighty Aphrodite". Among the most interesting features is the ending that shows how the hero simply abandons his potential glamorous life in show business and simply returns to his humble life, figuring he can only live in his honesty and reality, not in fake art, a completely different conclusion than the one reached in Allen's own later movie "Deconstructing Harry".
Grade;+++
Grade;+++
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