BULWORTH

• Starring Warren Beatty, Halle Berry and Oliver Platt
• Directed by Warren Beatty
• Rated R, with frequent raunchy language, brief violence; running time 107 minutes
• With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a 10

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(May 22,1998) -- Warren Beatty's Bulworth gets right in your face and leaves no room for indifference. Chances are, you'll either love this raucous political satire or hate it.

Count me among those who love it.

Bulworth is infuriating, utterly honest, wildly funny and shockingly offensive. At a time when too many movies are proud to be about nothing, Bulworth tackles such volatile topics as politics, economics and race in America.

As director, actor, producer and co-writer, Beatty has engineered a film as outrageous, cutting-edge and downright fun as Bonnie and Clyde and Shampoo, his gems of the 1960s and '70s.

Most of Beatty's films have flirted with political issues, but Bulworth meets them head-on. It's a stunning primal scream from one of Hollywood's grand, old-guard liberals.

Beatty plays Jay Bulworth, a California senator in the midst of a re-election campaign. As the film opens, he's in the tearful throes of depression. After taking a final huge bribe -- a $10 million insurance policy from an insurance lobbyist -- Bulworth contracts for a hit on himself.

But before he can be assassinated, he makes a few speeches and a remarkable discovery: With death imminent, he can be utterly honest.

At a black church in Watts, Bulworth tells listeners he and other pols will help them only if it serves a political purpose. Then he adds, ''If you don't put down that malt liquor and chicken wings and get behind somebody other than a running back who stabs his wife, you're never going to get rid of somebody like me.''

Later, at an upscale Beverly Hills cocktail party, he's equally blunt with a largely Jewish audience.

Bulworth and his befuddled campaign manager (Oliver Platt) discover, to their astonishment, that voters find his honesty so refreshing they rally around him. He starts to rise in the polls.

And if that's not enough, Bulworth finds himself falling in love with a mysterious black campaign volunteer (Halle Berry).

He tries to cancel his order for assassination. But until he can succeed, he's forced to hide out in L.A.'s black community, where he dresses in the loose-fitting garb of a gangsta rapper.

That's the least surprising part of his transformation. Bulworth also begins to rap when he speaks. He's no Chuck D., but he gets his audience's attention by jabbing, effectively and irreverently, at corporate greed and political corruption.

Beatty is hilarious as he unloads a lot of political angst that he's probably had pent up since the '60s.

He's also created a fascinating, startlingly honest bridge between black and white America. (Bulworth stresses that most white people have more in common with black people than with the small percentage of ultra-wealthy whites who form the nation's power structure.)

But Beatty is also a Hollywood veteran who never forgets to entertain. As an actor he seems as free -- and free-spirited -- as I've ever seen him on screen.

Surrounding him is an eccentric, expert cast, including Platt, the lovely, enigmatic Berry, and a charismatic Don Cheadle as an L.A. gang leader.

Noted black poet Amiri Baraka contributes an unusual cameo as a homeless man. Baraka's presence not only gives Bulworth an important endorsement, it also adds weight to its most profound philosophical statement.

''You got to be a spirit,'' he tells Bulworth. ''You can't be no ghost.''