Some
forty years ago, Allen Ginsberg's Howl urged Americans to
wake up and face the realities of injustice. Similarly, Warren
Beatty uses the medium of poetry to expose what he considers
the hypocrisies of the Democratic Party of the Clinton era.
Fed up with Beltway bullshit, Senator Bulworth of California
arranges to have himself assassinated while lampooning the
way in which the moneyed interests prevail over the people.
However, he so enjoys his role as national curmudgeon that
he decides to abort the assassination in order to continue
exposing why the Democrats do nothing for African Americans
(they do not contribute enough campaign money and cannot vote
Republican anyway), for health care (the insurance companies,
happily benefiting from the present system, make hefty campaign
contributions to keep it that way), etc. Using the vehicle
of rap music, Senator Bulworth is on the same wavelength as
Eddie Murphy's The Distinguished Gentleman,
in which the protagonist satirizes Washington D.C. politics
as the biggest con game in the world. Beatty's Don Quixote
tilts so many windmills so quickly that filmviewers will have
to see Bulworth several times to take complete notes on all
the syllabus of errors, most of which deal with the plight
of African Americans. MH
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