Bullets Over Broadway

A wonderfully written and directed comedy with an excellent cast. A motley cast of characters who are all narcissistic, delusional and incompetent. Every actor is perfect in their role but Diane Wiest and Meg Tilly are standouts. One of the last witty and truly funny comedies.

Overrated, boring and pretentious. This is a short description of this boredom in which the characters do not stop talking for a second, and the only thing that is good in the film are the three mobsters who are the supporting characters. Chazz Palminteri as Cheech is the only interesting character in the whole story, and he is a supporting character. The other characters talk nonsense all the time and never shut up. The pretentious boring dialogue makes the film unbearable, and the viewing turns into an agony that seems as long as eternity. The concept is interesting and the film could have been a lot better, and this way it turned out that watching this film was a complete waste of time. A boring movie in which even more boring characters never shut up. The cast is excellent, the cinematography is good but that can't save this disaster. A total waste of time.

Not among Woody Allen's top 5 best films but of the films I've seen of his so far- 36 altogether- Bullets Over Broadway's in the top 10. The period detail looks absolutely incredible and the whole film is photography beautifully, everything just looks so glitzy and glamorous without being too idealised. Tilly's costumes are also to die for. The wonderful score, somewhat a mix of jazz and Broadway, adds a huge amount to the period, the music itself is catchy penned by greats like George Gershwin, Rodgers & Hart and Cole Porter and the vocals are similarly great. Allen gives some of his best direction in Bullets Over Broadway and the screenplay is sheer brilliance, a vast majority of the lines are hilarious and intelligent(Allen in his films has a lot to say about his subjects and on the most part knows how to say it) in a way that is distinctive of Allen's style and there are some quotable ones too. Love also that the comedy has a light-hearted, biting and whimsical touch without going overboard in either area, and Allen to not make things too one-note includes a seriousness that is well pitched and balanced and an ironic ending that rounds things off nicely. The story goes at a brisk pace and the rehearsal and theatre scenes are incredibly entertaining. A great job is also done with how the characters are written and expanded, though it is a case of the supporting characters being more memorable than the leading one with Helen Sinclair and Cheech especially so. The ensemble performances are great, John Cusack has a difficult task playing Allen's younger alter ego and while you don't quite shake off the feeling that Allen himself would have been better in the role(though you can understand why he didn't) Cusack is actually one of the best actors that have attempted to play Allen's younger alter ego along with Will Ferrell in Melinda and Melinda and Seth Green in Radio Days, something that inevitably has had mixed results(as seen with Jason Biggs in Anything Else and especially Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity). Jennifer Tilly and Joe Viterelli are fine in tailor-made roles, true Tilly is a touch annoying and over-enthusiastic at times but seeing as it's part of the character it's not a problem at all. Jim Broadbent is marvellous and has rarely been more adorable and Mary Louise Parker, Jack Warden and Tracy Ullman provide plenty of humour and heart too. Harvey Fierstein is good and it is interesting to see Rob Reiner in a small role. But the best performances for me were Dianne Wiest, who won an Oscar and deservedly so in a performance that sees Wiest at her comic best(she's never been funnier), and Chazz Palminteri who is menacing, very amusing and sometimes charming, a gangster with a heart and the soul of a poet if you will. Overall, a wonderful film and one of Woody Allen's best of the 90s. 10/10 Bethany Cox

I'm a big fan of Woody Allen and rarely do his films disappoint, but I found this piece rather lame and tame for my taste. The plot is weak, but I could live with that. The main shortcoming is the two-dimensional characters. Woody Allen has a great eye for talent, so we have an opportunity to see John Cusack, Jim Broadbent, Tracey Ullman and Diane Weiss all do their stuff, but the characters are so weak these fine actors have so little room to display their talents. The piece felt a bit "Woody by numbers" to me - I could see the strings where usually I would be surprised and delighted - the way Olive's minder develops being the prime example of spotting the manipulation. This movie tries to address some big issues - "is the art more important than the man" being one such, but it tackles the issues without subtlety. For big issues, try Crimes and Misdemeanours instead. For Broadway charm, try Broadway Danny Rose. Both these films are fine films in their own very different ways. By way of contrast, "Bullets" is mostly firing blanks.

This is 'too much talking, too much empty words and boring and annoying characters' type of movie. Was really looking forward, the plot is interesting, but the dialogues- cannot believe it how annoying and boring they can be. The title of this movie should be: how to ruin perfectly good story with a dialogues. I gave it 2 points because of the scenography, which looks kind of 1920's New York. All Woody Alan's characters talk in the same way, weather it is a 1950's housewife (Wonder Wheel) or 1920's poet (this move). They gesticulate and talk in the same way, even the span between movies is more then 20 years. Fascinating!

If you are a die-hard Woody Allen fan then this movie is probably right up your alley. But four of us attempted to watch it and gave up after 27 minutes. EVERY character has the typical "neurotic, angst-filled" personality Woody Allen is famous for. Watching Woody Allen movies is exhausting, and after a while, boring. All (or most) characters are cut from the same cloth and it gets tiresome sorting through all the whiny, self-important dialog. Mr. Allen needs to learn that not everyone out there has the stereotypical Jewish personality he does and that he loves to foist on others in his movies. He insults his audience and doesn't do much for the image of the American Jew either.

Keep John Cusack out of every movie ever made except Say Anything. I could do without that guy ever being born. Such a dweeb. And this movie stinks too. Who cares and gangster and Broadway together? 1 star

This film is typical of Woody Allen's brilliance. He creates the scene about 1920's New York theater scene with scene stealer Dianne Weist who wins her second academy award again with Woody Allen plays a theater dame with a grandiose presence who takes on John Cusack's character. Of course, the play has problems getting produced. They filmed it at the real Belasco Theater in New York where I saw Jackie with Margaret Colin in 1997. Of course, that's what makes Woody Allen's films special is that he always films it in New York. I don't recall him as an actor in this film. He was wise enough to pass the role over to Cusack who does a superb job playing Woody's younger self. Anyway, Tilly does a terrific job playing an annoying and terrible actress but girlfriend of a mobster. What she wants is what she usually gets. First rate cast with Chaz Palminteri who was nominated along with Tilly for supporting acting Oscars. I hope Woody Allen will finally be recognized for his genius and get top honors like the National Medal of the Arts and honored by the Kennedy Center finally for his work. Nobody does New York like Woody Allen, of course, we all would like a bit of diversity in his films.

Now this is something sort of rare, though not really: Woody Allen mixing satire and drama, and the satire actually even more convincing than the drama. The opposite was in a more serious affair, Crimes and Misdemeanors, where art and murder and infidelities all get into one big pot of personality crises. This is the same case with Bullets Over Broadway, though this time Allen's tackling of the ego-maniacal crutches of the Broadway scene- the aging star Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest, one of her very best performances, funniest too), the bumbling boob Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly, appropriately annoying- and then how it sort of infects the outsiders to the major Broadway scene, one the protagonist David Shayne (John Cusack, excellent here), and Olive's bodyguard, Cheech (Chazz Palminteri, a character he could play in his sleep, but played pretty well anyway). Cheech is hanging around during rehearsals of David's first play he's writing and directing, following getting funding (on the condition of Olive as a psychiatrist) from a heavy-duty mobster, and soon he's suggesting ideas, and in the process becomes David's uncredited collaborator. But meanwhile infidelities are abound, with David falling for the wonderfully self-indulgent Helen, and a goofy romance between Olive and the thespian Warner Purcell (Jim Broadbent), leading to a purely ironic climax. Allen's skills at navigating the neuroses of all the characters is very skilled, and sometimes the one-liners are surprisingly funny, all based on the personalities (Wiesst especially, in a voice that is a little startling at first, gives a classic line about the world 'opening' up, and her running gag with "don't speak"). Even with the more dramatic connections, which doesn't seem to be as much of Allen's concerns since it's pretty one-note with the mob side of things (and, frankly, the fates of Olive and Cheech sort of seem a little too contrived for the sake of the irony par for the course), we do get a very memorable bit to make things worth the while, like David and Cheech's down to earth talk at the bar. But if there's anything else to recommend more strongly it's for the sharpness of the script in the theater scenes, the backstage banter, the hilarious tension stirred up by grudges and ill-timed romances. Plus, there's a bit of an added treat for fans of past Allen films, where he casts Rob Reiner in a role sort of similar to that of Wallace Shawn in Manhattan. Not a masterpiece, but a very enjoyable work that's successful on its dark-light terms.

A Woody Allen written and directed film that does not include him in a single frame. It may seem strange, but it's true. Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway" deals with a struggling stage writer (John Cusack) who is so desperate to get one of his plays on Broadway in the 1920s that he reluctantly enlists the help of the local mafia crime lord to fund the play. Of course there is a large stipulation. The crime lord's girl must be in the play (hilariously played by Jennifer Tilly in an Oscar-nominated role). Needless to say she's terrible and Cusack struggles with her in the play. However, he has booked A-list actress Dianne Wiest (in her second Oscar-winning role) who is an alcoholic who has seen better days in her career. Tilly's bodyguard (Chazz Palminteri, also in an Oscar-nominated role) sees the play rehearsed firsthand and gives Cusack some directions on the project that Cusack cannot refuse. Palminteri is street smart and knows how people really talk, while Cusack is so educated that his words make no sense to the normal audience. This film is what "The Godfather" would have been like if Allen had directed it. The screenplay is outstanding and Allen's direction has rarely been better. Cusack is fun and hilarious, but it is the supporting cast that makes the movie work. Other than the aforementioned Oscar-nominated actors, there are great turns by several others. Mary-Louise Parker, Tracy Ullman, Jim Broadbent, Jack Warden, Rob Reiner, Harvey Feinstein, and Joe Viterelli are all superb in well-calculated supporting roles. 4 out of 5 stars.