Directed by: Barry Levinson
Starring: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Ben Kingsley, Harvey Keitel, Elliott Gould, Joe Mantegna
Mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (he hated the nickname) created a paradise in the Nevada desert out of a vision of bright lights, show biz, and of course untold fortunes to be made by gamblers losing their shirts. He did not live to see it because he was gunned down in his home. Siegel ran afoul of his own mob brethren by blindly falling in love with wannabe starlet Virginia Hill (Bening), who stole $2 million from the mob during the Flamingo's construction. Things ended up a lot better for Las Vegas than it did for Siegel. The notorious gangster's fall is compellingly on display in Bugsy, which combines glamour, wit, rage, violence, and the business of the mob in a smartly acted and deftly directed film.
Warren Beatty might not be the actor you see playing a violent mobster, but you sure can see him playing the smoothie side of Bugsy Siegel. Beatty is able to negotiate the extremes of Bugsy, making him a charmer one minute and a raging psychopath the next. What kinds of things trigger his temper? Calling him Bugsy, for sure, but also stealing from him, lying to him, and being an unfortunate soul who is seen with Virginia, even if the guy turns out to be her brother. No worries. Bugsy is the kind of guy who apologizes and buys the guy he just pounded a new car. This is one of the best performances of Beatty's long career.
Bugsy opens in early 1940's Hollywood, with the New York mob run by Siegel, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky (Kingsley) looking to gain a foothold in Los Angeles. Siegel is immediately seduced by Hollywood's glamour and rubs elbows with movie stars, including smart Virginia, who doesn't instantly fall into Siegel's arms but makes him work a little bit to win her. Their relationship is passionate and tempestuous, not helped by Siegel's womanizing ways and his hair-trigger temper. One telling scene involves Virginia witnessing Siegel's dressing down of a thieving associate and then, turned on by Siegel's raw power, seduces him while blood trickles down his face thanks to an ashtray she threw at him moments before.
Bening and Beatty, of course, married following the filming of Bugsy and are still together today. Virginia is no pushover. We meet various Siegel associates, including Harvey Keitel as murderous mobster Mickey Cohen, who at first stole from Bugsy but then entered into a partnership with him. Ben Kingsley, as Meyer Lansky, has tricky scenes in which he must weigh his loyalty to his lifelong friend versus what is best for business. When Bugsy conceives of the Flamingo Hotel, he stops at nothing to achieve the dream of seeing it, including costly overruns and fraudulent share sales which guarantee capital while potentially swindling investors out of a return. Once Bugsy has a vision, he does not let go of it. "You will have nothing," says Lansky, "After all of this, nothing".
Levinson moves things along briskly, finding time to introduce Bugsy's long-suffering wife and children who have come to terms with who the type of husband and father he is. He dotes on his kids, which is the side of Bugsy we can't imagine existing when he murders a longtime friend who turned state's evidence against Lucky Luciano. Bugsy is not a film which glorifies the mob or its traditional values. It sees the business of crime as a cold and calculating numbers game. The people aren't as colorful as a Henry Hill or a Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas. Bugsy doesn't exude that type of energy, but instead gives us an unflinching view of crime as a moneymaking enterprise. It is a business, much like corporations, including the ones which run Las Vegas. The legal corporations are no less cold and bottom line driven as the mob. Only the mob carries guns.
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