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From Amazon.co.uk
Bugsy represents an almost miraculous combination of director, writer and star on a project that represents a career highlight for everyone involved. It's one of the best American gangster movies ever made--as good in its own way as any of the Godfather films--and it's impossible to imagine anyone better than Beatty in the movie's flashy title role. As notorious mobster and Las Vegas visionary "Bugsy" Siegel, Beatty is perfectly cast as a man whose dreams are greater than his ability to realise them--or at least, greater than his ability to stay alive while making those dreams come true. With a glamorous Hollywood mistress (Annette Bening) who shares Bugsy's dream while pursuing her own upwardly mobile agenda, Bugsy seems oblivious to threats when he begins to spend too much of the mob's money on the creation of the Flamingo casino. Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel) will support Bugsy's wild ambition to a point, after which all bets are off, and Bugsy's life hangs in the balance. From the obvious chemistry of Beatty and Bening (who met and later married off-screen) to the sumptuous reproduction of 1940s Hollywood, every detail in this movie feels impeccably right. Beatty is simply mesmerising as the man who invented Las Vegas but never saw it thrive, moving from infectious idealism to brutal violence in the blink of an eye. Director Barry Levinson is also in peak form here, guiding the stylish story with a subtle balance of admiration and horror; we can catch Bugsy's Vegas fever and root for the gangster's success, but we know he'll get what he deserves. We might wish that Bugsy had lived to see his dream turn into a booming oasis, but the movie doesn't suggest that we should shed any tears. --Jeff Shannon
Product Description
Warren Beatty stars in the life story of Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel, the Hollywood-obsessed, hot-tempered gangster who dreamt of a desert gambling paradise that would one day become Las Vegas. When Bugsy embarks on an affair with beautiful starlet Virginia 'The Flamingo' Hill (Annette Bening), the pair plot against the underworld bosses who rule them both. Their ambitions, however, soon lead them into violent waters. The film received ten Oscar nominations.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Bugsy is easily one of the most handsome pictures of the 90s, but on a second viewing it's a little less impressive than it seemed at the time. Siegel's life and crimes were too all-encompassing for anything less than a mini-series to do justice to it, but even so it's curious that for a film concentrating on his time in Hollywood and his fatal dream of turning Las Vegas into a gangster's paradise avoids his attempts to squeeze the studios dry by offering a union-fixing protection racket, one of the great untold Hollywood stories of the 40s. But what it does do it does well, offering centerstage to its charismatic, contradictory, impulsive and sporadically violent anti-hero and his equally contradictory lover. The violence isn't glossed over (indeed, Siegel's humiliation of one underling acts as a turn-on for the far from saintly dame), although Warren Beatty doesn't always quite convince when he's required to be pathologically sadistic.
The supporting cast are pretty impressive, especially Ben Kingsley before he disappeared up his own backside post-knighthood and Elliot Gould as a very simple stoolie, but it's surprising that Harvey Keitel was singled out for an Oscar nomination for his good but unremarkable work as Mickey Cohen. Still, it did result one of the best pre-Oscar interviews of all time: when asked what he'd do with his Oscar if he won, he casually replied that he'd smash it over Edward James Olmos' head (Keitel's wife had just left him for Olmos at the time). Maybe Keitel should've played Bugsy himself...
The only extra on Columbia's original DVD release of the theatrical version is the theatrical trailer.
The supporting cast are pretty impressive, especially Ben Kingsley before he disappeared up his own backside post-knighthood and Elliot Gould as a very simple stoolie, but it's surprising that Harvey Keitel was singled out for an Oscar nomination for his good but unremarkable work as Mickey Cohen. Still, it did result one of the best pre-Oscar interviews of all time: when asked what he'd do with his Oscar if he won, he casually replied that he'd smash it over Edward James Olmos' head (Keitel's wife had just left him for Olmos at the time). Maybe Keitel should've played Bugsy himself...
The only extra on Columbia's original DVD release of the theatrical version is the theatrical trailer.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By Jason Parkes
#1 HALL OF FAME
Format:VHS Tape
...This film from 1991 was Oscar nominated, but only came away with one for costume- which was dominated by the slightly over-rated Silence of the Lambs. Perhaps this was looked over as the definitive gangster film had been made a few years previously: Scorsese's Goodfellas. Having said that, this precedes Scorsese's own Las Vegas mob film, Casino- whichever way you look at it, there is always a fresh spin on the mob: and this is one (Road to Perdition is, on the other hand, not).
As with many biopics, and the fact the charismatic Beatty is involved, Siegel comes across as a slightly romantic psychopath- this generally works (to see how it doesn't, take a look at the risible turn by Dustin Hoffmann as a gangster in Billy Bathgate). THe screenplay by James Toback (Black&White, Fingers, Harvard Man, Two Girls&a Guy) is excellent; as is the classy score by veteran Ennio Morricone- which ranks with his best work of the 1990's alongside the score on Lolita.
The supporting cast is also a joy- brilliant turns from Ben Kingsley, Annette Benning, Elliot Gould, Joe Mantegna, Harvey Keitel & Bebe Neuwirth. For anyone who appreciates the dark mob undertones of James Ellroy's fiction (E.g. The Cold Six Thousand)or Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America- there is much to enjoy here. This is everything that The Godfather Part III was not. One of the classic gangster films of recent years, to rank alongside Casino, Sonatine, Donnie Brasco, Carlito's Way , Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai & Fallen Angels.
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Peter Kenney
Format:VHS Tape
BUGGSY is an entertaining film about the career of the infamous gangster Benjamin Siegel. Warren Beatty does a superb job in the lead and the strong supporting cast includes Annette Bening, Ben Kingsley, Harvey Keitel and Eliot Gould. The time period roughly correlates with THE GODFATHER. Fellow mobsters Mickey Cohen and Meyer Lansky have key roles in the movie as Siegel's business partners.
Barry Levinson directed several other excellent films including RAIN MAN and GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM.
BUGSY won Oscars in 1991 for Best Art Direction and Costume Design. Nominations were received by Levinson, Beatty, Keitel and Kingsley. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Cinematography and Original Score.
Barry Levinson directed several other excellent films including RAIN MAN and GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM.
BUGSY won Oscars in 1991 for Best Art Direction and Costume Design. Nominations were received by Levinson, Beatty, Keitel and Kingsley. The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Cinematography and Original Score.
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