IronWatcher’s review published on Letterboxd:
Watched on Netflix
Las Vegas. What a town. Probably one of the most unreal and immoral but also most fascinating places in the world. I've been to this "city" once before and hopefully there will be several more. I don't know any other place that changes so quickly and overtakes itself again and again, always producing new superlatives.
It all started with the vision of a more than dubious man and the Flamingo Hotel. The story of this man, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, and the construction of the hotel also form the core of this biopic/mobster strip. Of course, the movie has a very slow narrative tempo and even if you consider it a gangster movie it surely can't compete with the great classics of the genre from the Scorseses and Coppolas of this world.
However, as a biopic the whole thing works out very well. The movie takes enough time to describe the character of Bugsy Siegel with all his facets. The very multifaceted play of Warren Beatty shows a human being that could hardly be more contradictory and at the same time more captivating. Beatty plays here the whole keyboard of the play up and down. While Siegel is still a charismatic charmer and rhetorician one moment, the next moment this turns into excessive brutality and culminates in paranoia and loss of reality in the course of the film. Besides Beatty, Anette Bening stands out in particular, who as Siegel's lover Virginia Hill performs a grandiose balancing act between femme fatale on the one hand and naive starlet on the other.
The whole thing is underlined by a nice, unfortunately completely underestimated score by Ennio Morricone.
IronWatcher liked this review
' ].join(''); if ( adsScript && adsScript === 'bandsintown' && adsPlatforms && ((window.isIOS && adsPlatforms.indexOf("iOS") >= 0) || (window.isAndroid && adsPlatforms.indexOf("Android") >= 0)) && adsLocations && adsMode && ( (adsMode === 'include' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) >= 0) || (adsMode === 'exclude' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) == -1) ) ) { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100005950, div_id: "cf_async_fd702281-69ce-4692-85ae-e78498d71dc7" }; adUnit.id = opts.div_id; if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; } else { adUnit.id = 'pw-fd702281-69ce-4692-85ae-e78498d71dc7'; adUnit.className = 'pw-div -tile300x250 -alignleft -bottommargin'; adUnit.setAttribute('data-pw-' + (renderMobile ? 'mobi' : 'desk'), 'med_rect_btf'); if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { adUnit.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', kicker); window.ramp.que.push(function () { window.ramp.addTag('pw-fd702281-69ce-4692-85ae-e78498d71dc7'); }); }, { once: true }); } } tag.remove(); })(document.getElementById('script-fd702281-69ce-4692-85ae-e78498d71dc7'));
' ].join(''); if ( adsScript && adsScript === 'bandsintown' && adsPlatforms && ((window.isIOS && adsPlatforms.indexOf("iOS") >= 0) || (window.isAndroid && adsPlatforms.indexOf("Android") >= 0)) && adsLocations && adsMode && ( (adsMode === 'include' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) >= 0) || (adsMode === 'exclude' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) == -1) ) ) { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100005950, div_id: "cf_async_9d9de8b1-1292-4b13-a67d-0876b1c843f4" }; adUnit.id = opts.div_id; if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; } else { adUnit.id = 'pw-9d9de8b1-1292-4b13-a67d-0876b1c843f4'; adUnit.className = 'pw-div'; adUnit.setAttribute('data-pw-' + (renderMobile ? 'mobi' : 'desk'), 'sky_btf'); if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { adUnit.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', kicker); window.ramp.que.push(function () { window.ramp.addTag('pw-9d9de8b1-1292-4b13-a67d-0876b1c843f4'); }); }, { once: true }); } } tag.remove(); })(document.getElementById('script-9d9de8b1-1292-4b13-a67d-0876b1c843f4'));
