Rent Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

Clever Comedy (spoiler). - Bullets Over Broadway review by Steve

Woody Allen proved he could still do funny with this period comedy about a serious young playwright (John Cusack) who seeks to stage a drama on Broadway in the '20s. The play is backed by a mafia don on the condition the writer cast his ditsy gold-digging girlfriend (Jennifer Tilly). But the production is taken over the latent genius of the moll's bodyguard (Chazz Palminteri).

This is one of the funniest films ever made. Credit is due to Allen and Douglas McGrath's screwball script, but hard to imagine this cast could be bettered. Diane Wiest is fabulous as an ageing alcoholic diva and the queen of New York theatre. Jim Broadbent as a gluttonous English ham and Tracey Ullman as a perky ingenue mothering her yappy Pekinese are exceptional.

Tilly was nominated for the Oscar which Wiest actually won. They get superlative dialogue and ingenious plot complications. There is a theme of whether the true artist is so precious to mankind that s/he operates beyond the law, but it is presented in a comical way which doesn't obstruct the flow of priceless gags.

Broadway during the roaring twenties is richly evoked. The choreography is excellent. The conclusion when the gunman/chaperone utters the temperamental star's catchphrase after being shot down (thus revealing she had secretly uncovered and seduced the real artist) is inspired (and apparently ad-libbed). This joyous comedy is one of Woody's greatest ever films.