Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
Directed by Woody Allen

Film Review

Bullets over Broadway is the kind of film that Woody Allen could make in his sleep, an exuberant period farce replete with colourful characters and acres of snappy dialogue. It's not a profound film, it's not even particularly original, but it is unflaggingly entertaining, as enjoyable as anything that Allen has so far given us. The characters, the sets, even the story look as if they have been ripped wholesale from a compendium of stories by Damon Runyon, the writer whose wacky take on Broadway life on the eve of the Wall Street crash was given the glossy movie treatment a few years previously, in Howard Brookner's Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989). Beneath the lurid Runyonesque trappings there are some typically Allenesque musings on the relationship between art and life and how far the two should be allowed to impinge on one another.

Few would argue with Allen's oft-repeated observation that an artist creates his own moral universe, but does that imply that an artist is morally free to do anything to ensure he achieves his aims?  Can, for example, he commit murder for art's sake?  You could argue that, if art has no moral boundaries, it ceases to have any place in the sphere of human affairs and becomes totally redundant, for we are all, consciously or otherwise, bound by tangible moral precepts. Bullets Over Broadway has us wending our way through this thorny philosophical maze without reaching any definite conclusion, other than to churn out a glib coda which bleats (unconvincingly) that a man who is not prepared to kill or be killed for his art has no right to call himself an artist.

Rather than get bogged down in the intellectual conundrums that they cheerfully raise but fail to come to grips with, Allen and his companion screenwriter Douglas McGrath focus most of their energy on making us laugh, for the most part gloriously mocking the pretensions of theatre folk (the same pretensions that are as rife today as they were back in the roaring '20s). Dianne Wiest's character is the fullest embodiment of the faded star hoping for a comeback, a tragicomic Norma Desmond type who is sustained only by an insane belief that she is destined for a second bout of stardom. Wiest's sympathetic portrayal of Helen Sinclair makes her more than just an egregious archetype and it is fitting that she won an Academy Award for her performance (her previous Oscar win being for another Woody Allen film, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)).

The other characters are somewhat less fully developed and less believable than Wiest's, much more prone to lazy caricature in both the writing and the acting. Jennifer Tilly's screechy voiced Olive is such an irritating, over-the-top grotesque that we are glad to see the back of her (the only surprise is how long she lasts into the film), and John Cusack's idealistic, too full-of-himself writer offers no surprises, just the obvious slew of dreary clichés arranged with mathematical predictability. Jim Broadbent is a welcome wild card addition to the motley ensemble of well-worn archetypes, his role being little more than to service a running gag about a man with a chronic eating disorder. Joe Viterelli and Chazz Palminteri comfortably inhabit stock gangster caricatures straight out of a second rate caper movie of the 1930s, but they at least bring a touch of class to the proceedings. Most of the rest of the cast fail to have any real impact, although this is more a reflection of the complacent writing than the quality of the acting. Harvey Fierstein, Mary-Louise Parker and Tracey Ullman each brings lustre to the ensemble but individually they end up getting lost in the crowd.

Lacking in depth and coherence, Bullets over Broadway is hardly first rate Woody Allen but it is without doubt one of the writer-director's most spirited and entertaining comedies, one that you can easily watch time and again without ever growing tired of it. Prompted by his sister, Letty Aronson, Allen capitalised on the film's enduring popular appeal by turning it into a stage musical (imaginatively titled Bullets Over Broadway - The Musical). This premiered on Broadway in 2014 and, after receiving some mixed reviews, had a run of 156 performances.

Film Synopsis

New York City, 1928. David Shayne is an aspiring young playwright who is determined to make a name for himself on Broadway without compromising his principles. He has written a socially meaningful play, God of Our Fathers, which he knows will be a hit, but he can't find a backer. In the end, he is forced to swallow his pride and accept money from big-shot hoodlum Nick Valenti in return for giving a big role in the play to the latter's ditsy girlfriend, Olive Neal. To protect his investment, Valenti provides Olive with a personal bodyguard, in the form of his strong-arm man Cheech. Whilst Olive's complete lack of acting ability depresses him, David is happy with the rest of his cast, particularly his choice of leading lady, Helen Sinclair, a faded star of Broadway hoping for a big comeback. David finds himself drawn to Helen, even though he is much younger than she is and is already in a relationship with another woman. As rehearsals get underway and tempers start to fray some major flaws in the play soon become apparent, but help comes from an unlikely quarter. The only person who seems to know what is wrong with the play and how to fix it is Cheech. Before David knows it, the supposedly dumb bodyguard has taken creative control of his work and is ready to take some drastic measures to ensure its success...