Despite an impressive array of talent, the ingredients never catch fire in this oddly lifeless adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's acclaimed novel.
Billy Bathgate (Loren Dean), an enterprising street kid from the Depression-era Bronx slums, bluffs and charms his way into the upper echelons of Dutch Schultz's (Hoffman) gang by helping expose the duplicity of Schultz's trusted lieutenant, Bo Weinberg (Bruce Willis). Dumped from a tugboat
wearing cement overshoes, Weinberg leaves behind a rich girlfriend, Drew Preston (Nicole Kidman), who takes up with Schultz. It becomes Billy's main job to take care of Drew, as Schultz, already in decline, is preoccupied with fighting federal tax-evasion charges in the courts and rising mafioso
Lucky Luciano (Stanley Tucci) on the streets.
Doctorow's multileveled plotting becomes BILLY BATHGATE's greatest liability: Stoppard's script and Benton's direction are so preoccupied with keeping the lines of action clear that they fail to establish a consistent mood or a strong point of view--the novel's real strengths. The casting also
works against any lasting impact. The highly-touted Dean emerges here as just another generic brat-packer, wholly out of his expressive range. Kidman is too cool a beauty to evoke the hungry sexuality of the novel's Drew, for whom men were literally willing to die. Hoffman is, as usual,
technically flawless, but on a gut level he fails even to erase memories of James Remar's searing portrayal of Schulz in THE COTTON CLUB. Only Steven Hill's performance, as Schultz's level-headed accountant, suggests the rough lyricism of Doctorow's elegy to the bad men who built America. leave a comment