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Bulworth

  • 1998
  • 18A
  • 1h 48m
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
27K
YOUR RATING
Bulworth (1998)
Theatrical Trailer from 20th Century Fox
Play trailer1:39
1 Video
99+ Photos
ComedyDramaRomance

A suicidally disillusioned liberal politician puts a contract out on himself and takes the opportunity to be bluntly honest with his voters by affecting the rhythms and speech of hip-hop mus... Read allA suicidally disillusioned liberal politician puts a contract out on himself and takes the opportunity to be bluntly honest with his voters by affecting the rhythms and speech of hip-hop music and culture.A suicidally disillusioned liberal politician puts a contract out on himself and takes the opportunity to be bluntly honest with his voters by affecting the rhythms and speech of hip-hop music and culture.

  • Director
    • Warren Beatty
  • Writers
    • Warren Beatty
    • Jeremy Pikser
  • Stars
    • Warren Beatty
    • Halle Berry
    • Kimberly Deauna Adams
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.8/10
    27K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Warren Beatty
    • Writers
      • Warren Beatty
      • Jeremy Pikser
    • Stars
      • Warren Beatty
      • Halle Berry
      • Kimberly Deauna Adams
    • 242User reviews
    • 74Critic reviews
    • 75Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 Oscar
      • 1 win & 20 nominations total

    Videos1

    Bulworth
    Trailer 1:39
    Watch Bulworth

    Photos113

    Warren Beatty in Bulworth (1998)
    Warren Beatty in Bulworth (1998)
    Warren Beatty and Oliver Platt in Bulworth (1998)
    Warren Beatty and Halle Berry in Bulworth (1998)
    Warren Beatty, Jonathan Roger Neal, Tony Tomas Randle, and Arthur Reggie III in Bulworth (1998)
    Warren Beatty in Bulworth (1998)
    Halle Berry in Bulworth (1998)
    Halle Berry in Bulworth (1998)
    Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, Ariyan A. Johnson, and Michelle Morgan in Bulworth (1998)
    Warren Beatty and Halle Berry in Bulworth (1998)
    Warren Beatty and Halle Berry in Bulworth (1998)
    Warren Beatty in Bulworth (1998)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Warren Beatty
    Warren Beatty
    • Jay Bulworth
    Halle Berry
    Halle Berry
    • Nina
    Kimberly Deauna Adams
    • Denisha
    Vinny Argiro
    • Debate Director
    Sean Astin
    Sean Astin
    • Gary
    Kirk Baltz
    Kirk Baltz
    • Debate Producer
    Ernie Lee Banks
    Ernie Lee Banks
    • Leroy
    • (as Ernie Banks)
    Amiri Baraka
    Amiri Baraka
    • Rastaman
    Christine Baranski
    Christine Baranski
    • Constance Bulworth
    Adilah Barnes
    Adilah Barnes
    • Mrs. Brown
    Graham Beckel
    Graham Beckel
    • Man with Dark Glasses
    Brandon N. Bowlin
    • Bouncer #2
    Mongo Brownlee
    • Henchman #3
    Thomas Jefferson Byrd
    Thomas Jefferson Byrd
    • Uncle Rafeeq
    J. Kenneth Campbell
    J. Kenneth Campbell
    • Anthony
    Scott Michael Campbell
    Scott Michael Campbell
    • Head Valet
    Jann Carl
    Jann Carl
    • Carl Jann
    Kerry Catanese
    • Video Reporter #4
    • Director
      • Warren Beatty
    • Writers
      • Warren Beatty
      • Jeremy Pikser
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Many objected against Warren Beatty hiring Composer Ennio Morricone to write the score for the film. One of the reasons was his hefty fee of about a million dollars and Beatty eventually won out over his producers. Despite all of this, Morricone only has a little more than ten minutes of his complete score featured in the final cut of the film which largely dominated by rap music and other source music. Morricone was not pleased with the end results of the film and what Beatty had done to his score.
    • Goofs
      Bulworth tells the assassin that he will be traveling to Los Angeles via American Airlines, yet the arrival airplane footage shown is clearly a Southwest Airline plane.
    • Quotes

      Sen. Jay Billington Bulworth: Obscenity? The rich is getting richer and richer and richer while the middle class is getting more poor/ Making billions and billions and billions of bucks/ well my friend if you weren't already rich at the start well that situation just sucks/cause the riches mother fucker in five of us is getting ninety fuckin eight percent of it/ and every other motherfucker in the world is left to wonder where the fuck we went with it/ Obscenity?/ I'm a Senator/ I gotta raise $10,000 a day every day I'm in Washington/ I ain't getting it in South Central/ I'm gettin it in Beverly Hills/ So I'm votin from them in the Senate the way they want me too/ and-and-and I'm sending them my bills/ But we got babies in South Central dying as young as they do in Peru/ We got public schools that are nightmares/ We got a Congress that ain't got a clue/We got kids with submachine guns/ We got militias throwing bombs/ We got Bill just gettin all weepy/ We got Newt blaming teenage moms/We got factories closing down/ Where the hell did all the good jobs go? Well, I'll tell you where they went/My contributors make more profits makin, makin, makin, Hirin' kids in Mexico/ Oh a brother can work in fast food/ If he can't invent computer games/ But what we used to call America/ That's going down the drains/How's a young man gonna meet his financial responsibilities workin and motherfuckin Burger King? He ain't! And please don't even start with that school shit/ There aint no education going on up in that motherfucker/ Obscenity? We got a million brothers in prison/ I mean, the walls are really rockin/But you can bet your ass they'd all be out/If they could pay for Johnny Cochran/ The constitution is supposed to give them an equal chance/ Well, that ain't gonna happen for sure/ Ain't it time to take a little from the rich motherfucker and give a little to the poor? I mean, those boys over there on the monitor/ they want a government smaller and weak/ but the be speakin for the riches 20 percent when they pretend they're defendin the meek/ Now, shit, fuck, cocksuker, that's the real obscenity/ Black folks livin with every day/ Trying to believe a mothefuckin word Democrats and Republicans say/ Obscenity? I'm Jay Billington Bulworth And I've come to say/ The Democratic party's got some shit to pay/ It's gonna pay it in the ghetto/ It's gonna pay it in the...

      [talks a little]

      Sen. Jay Billington Bulworth: You know the guy in the booth who's talking to you in that tiny little earphone? He's afraid the guys at network are gonna tell him that he's through/ If he lets a guy keep talking like I'm talking to you/ Cause the corporations got the networks and they get to say who gets to talk about the country and who's crazy today/ I would cut to a commercial if you still want this job/ Because you may not be back tomorrow with this cooperate mob/Cut to commercial, cut to commercial, cut to commercial. Ok ok I got a simple question that I'd like to ask of this network/ That pays you for performing this task/ How come they got the airwaves? They're the peoples aren't they? Wouldn't they be worth 70 billion to the public today? If some money-grubbin Congress didn't give them away for big campaign money? It's hopeless you see/ If you're runnin for office with out no TV/If you don't get big money/ You get a defeat/ Corporations and broadcasters make you dead meat/ You been taught in this country there's speech that is free/ But free don't get you no spots on TV/If you want to have senators not on the take/ Then give them free air time/ They won't have to fake/ Telecommunications is the name of the beast/that, that, that, that, that's eating up the world from the west to the east/ The movies, the tabloids, TV and magazines/ they tell us what to think and do/ And all our hopes and dreams/ All this information makes America phat/ But if the company's outta the country/ How American is that? But we got Americans with families that can't even buy a meal/ Ask a brother who's been downsized if he's getting any deal/ Or a white boy bustin ass til they put him in his grave/ He ain't gotta be a black boy to be livin like a slave/ Rich people have always stayed on top by dividing white people from colored people/ but white people got more in common with colored people then they do with rich people/ we just gotta eliminate them. White people, black people, brown people, yellow people, get rid of 'em all/ All we need is a voluntary, free spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction/ Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody til they're all the same color

    • Crazy credits
      For the song "Bulworth Breakdown," the title character Jay Bulworth is credited as a writer and performer.
    • Connections
      Featured in Pras Feat. Ol' Dirty Bastard & Mya: Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are) (1998)
    • Soundtracks
      Semper Fidelis
      Composed by John Philip Sousa

      Performed by The Band of the Grenadier Guards

      Conducted by Major Rodney Bashford

      Courtesy of The Decca Record Company Limited/London Records

      By Arrangement with PolyGram Film & TV Music

    User reviews242

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    9/10
    Contemporary classic!
    Bulworth was released quite a few years ago, but it is still (if not more) relevant today. It merges two "cultures," one being the rich white class culture, and the other being the urban lower class culture, and ends up with many universal ideals. The story's hero is Jay Billington Bulworth, portrayed brilliantly by Warren Beatty. I think some people have a problem with the fact that he is...well, more or less insane, but that is possibly the most important thing about the character. You could call him insane, but if you look at it more romantically, perhaps he is "posessed" by the "spirit" of social justice, a mere vessel for the truths that need to be told. He is a character unaware of the significance in what he is saying. To him, if he's not completely insane, he's simply a man who broke down and decided to tell it like it is (ala Peter Finch in Network, but with rapping and rhyming). There's something actually kind of mystical about all this.

    Since it would be way too preachy if that's all there was to the story, there's some other aspects that make for an entertaining viewing. Bulworth, in his depression and anxiety, hired a hit-man to "off" him so his family could collect the life insurance. Once his speeches and raps become a success, this is obviously a big problem since he wants to live again ("You should never make life and death situations when feeling suicidal"). There is a love interest with a girl named Nina, played by the lovely Halle Berry. You don't know if you can trust her, and her intentions are unclear.

    There is also a fine supporting role by Don Cheadle, who plays a "business man" who uses young children to sell drugs. His character does bring up some valid points, and we're forced to really put ourselves in his shoes. He's doing what he feels is right, but ultimately, the ends don't justify his means.

    With a movie that has so much going on, it would probably be difficult for the filmmakers to figure out a way to wrap everything up, right? Unfortunately, yes. Bulworth ends pretty abruptly and leaves with the film's message being half-assedly shouted at the screen. The last act is a huge flaw in an otherwise perfect movie.

    Bulworth is a hilarious comedy and it heralds something truly special and unique. It is not a film to be taken for granted or forgotten. It's a quintessential example of a 'contemporary classic' for our generation. I have no doubt that over the next decade or so, people will want to revisit it and examine the politics and the cultures; it should be studied in classrooms, it should be valued. I loved Bulworth!

    My rating: 9/10
    helpful•57
    9
    • Derek237
    • Aug 10, 2005

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    FAQ20

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • May 22, 1998 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Tribulations
    • Filming locations
      • Los Angeles International Airport - 1 World Way, Los Angeles, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Twentieth Century Fox
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $30,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $26,528,185
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $141,816
      • May 17, 1998
    • Gross worldwide
      • $29,202,884
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 48 minutes
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
      • DTS
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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