Bulsworth (1998)

Plot: A political comedy.  A US Senator decides to "tell it like it is" before he's killed by his own hit-man*
Stars:  Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, Jack Warden
Typical Joke: Murphy, Feldman, you're lookin' pretty beat / I thought you might feel better with some ribs to eat / Eat 'em, gentlemen, you'll think they're really fine / And if you want a couple more you can get 'em anytime! - Bulsworth

Background
In 1998, Bulsworth scored with most critics, who liked its political message and it received numerous award nominations.   Box office-wise, the film did good business, and was popular overseas. Today, the critics still like it, but its mostly forgotten and scores a 6.4 IMDB Rating with the "Top 1000 Viewers". Politics date a film.

The Most Embarrassing Political "Comedy" Ever 
The central conceits are:

• 61 year-old Beatty is such a hunk, beautiful 25 y/o Halle Berry falls for him
• black folks need Beatty - The Great White Hope - to save them from themselves 
• people are shocked that Corporations pay off Politicians.  

Even worse, Beatty "turns black"
And we get a rapping Beatty, who stays in Compton, fights off racist cops, and helps a black drug lord go straight.  At the end, Beatty dies in a manner evoking the MLK assassination.  Talk about bad taste! And the dialogue given to the black actors is fake, fake, fake.  Most of the film's black people are rappers, drug dealers and street people - black politicians don't seem to exist.  Maybe Bulsworth should have talked to a few.

Incredibly, the poor script got an AA award nomination! 

All the so-called humor comes from: "Beatty acts black - LoL" Warren is rapping -LoL**" and "The stuffed shirts are upset - LoL". But Beatty isn't personally funny - so all the humor comes from the situations. BTW, if you find profanity hilarious, you'll laugh your head off. 

Summary:  Praised by critics for its left-wing politics - Bulsworth  fails as a movie. Unfunny, way too long, and full of cringe-worthy racial attitudes. Its Ishtar funny - with patronizing racism.  Rating *

* = The premise of someone hiring a hit-man to kill him, and then changing his mind after meeting the right woman - is stolen from "I Hired a Contract Killer" (1990)
** = As in Ishtar,  Beatty's bad singing/rapping is supposed to be hilarious