Bullets Over Broadway

Woody Allen, USA 1994, 99 minutes

If you thought Woody Allen had become complacent when making films recently, Bullets Over Broadway will prove you wrong. Yes, it's set mostly in New York and has a neurotic, twitchy character, lacking in self-confidence, but Allen doesn't play that part, and this film is not so much a study of one man's neuroses, as of the interactions of different characters and the quirky and funny results of chance happenings.

Set in the '20s, the story follows the attempts by naïve playwright David Shane (John Cusack) to have his play "God of our Fathers" staged on Broadway, or anywhere, in fact.

His uncompromising stance is defeated when funding for the play is gained by his producer from prohibition mobster Nick Valenti, on one condition - that his girlfriend Olive Neal (Jennifer Tilly) plays a major role.

Shane's problems with Olive is only the start of his worries. He also has to cope with the poor willpower of leading man Warner Purcell (Jim Broadbent) and the amorous, possibly career enhancing advances of flamboyant grande dame Helen Sinclair (Dianne Wiest). Will the show go out on time? Will the show go out at all?

Helen Sinclair easily has all the best lines in a consistently funny script that is full of memorable quotable lines. Cheech (Chazz Palminteri), Olive's hoodlum bodyguard is possibly one of the most surprising and fully-fleshed characters, beginning as a wise-cracking observer and critic, and developing into one of the major players in the plays success. Not all the subplots come to fruition, but there is more than enough here to engage and enjoy.

Woody Allen on top form again - and no theatrics.

"A brilliant return to form" - Premiere

Review by Scott Keir
Taken from EUFS Programme 1996-97