Bullets over Broadway is a mockery of theatre folk and all their high minded aspirations of the world. There is no better target to being with than the young, idealistic screenwriter who has many a great idea. This man is David Shayne, who has just arrived in Broadway and has a screenplay that seeks to "transform men's soul". But it's a little heavy for other's tastes, and besides he has no backer. That is until a gangster agrees to finance his play as long as his girlfriends gets a lead role. Cusack plays the Allen type - it is written almost exactly as if Allen intended to play it himself. Listen to the inflection and intonation of his voice-over, so full of stuffed self-importance and faux gravitas. It channels the Allen type perfectly, who has always been supremely self-conscious. What keeps Shayne up at night? The horrible, moral wrong of selling out, so stressful that it stretches his ethical and artistic merit. Worse yet, the fact that he is only a mediocre writer is slowly being confirmed to him.
But Cusack isn't Allen, so he can only go so far as to mimic. The character, like the Alvy Singers and the Isaac Davis' before him, is written to have the neurotic ability to make anything situation the worst thing in the world as well as simultaneously the funniest. He blows up about things that may matter, but does so in such an exasperated and offended way that it creates humour. Cusack channels this temporarily, when he defends accusations of an affair, and flips the tables around so that it is he who is the victim (later, he gets mightily offended that she has been doing the same thing). He is so self-righteous that it becomes her that is perpetuating the wrong by accusing him. The film is set up so that Shayne will have the same reaction when he discovers that Neal has been killed right before the play's opening night. Cusack merely explodes morally. Now imagine Allen in the same scene. He would have made a big fuss over the moral wrong of such a crime, but at the same time would also have trouble hiding the fact that he cares more about how his play is now ruined.
The cause is the comedy being played too straight. The film's world is one of absurd exaggerations and pompous theatre folk that place reputation above all. It's funniest moments come from the irony that it is the low class, roughly-hewn gangster that is the most eloquent and complex. While all the others are fuming about their importance and trivialities, he is the one most passionate about the artistic merit. More so that Shayne himself, a fact which briefly rocks him and then comforts him as he goes on to take credit for all his ideas. Noble he is not. The rest of the cast is lovely, although they are merely pieces to build the joke. Wiest is the best of them, the airy inflator, still perpetuating the idea that she is as relevant and essential as she was in her prime. At a bar, she beats Cusack at his own game of self-righteousness by ordering two martinis for herself, and Shayne's answers illustrates just how self-centred they all are. She constantly shushes him with a "Don't speak!" every time he tries to wax lyrical, because it would ruin the idea of him. And if you had been paying attention to his dialogue, you would certainly agree.
But Cusack isn't Allen, so he can only go so far as to mimic. The character, like the Alvy Singers and the Isaac Davis' before him, is written to have the neurotic ability to make anything situation the worst thing in the world as well as simultaneously the funniest. He blows up about things that may matter, but does so in such an exasperated and offended way that it creates humour. Cusack channels this temporarily, when he defends accusations of an affair, and flips the tables around so that it is he who is the victim (later, he gets mightily offended that she has been doing the same thing). He is so self-righteous that it becomes her that is perpetuating the wrong by accusing him. The film is set up so that Shayne will have the same reaction when he discovers that Neal has been killed right before the play's opening night. Cusack merely explodes morally. Now imagine Allen in the same scene. He would have made a big fuss over the moral wrong of such a crime, but at the same time would also have trouble hiding the fact that he cares more about how his play is now ruined.
The cause is the comedy being played too straight. The film's world is one of absurd exaggerations and pompous theatre folk that place reputation above all. It's funniest moments come from the irony that it is the low class, roughly-hewn gangster that is the most eloquent and complex. While all the others are fuming about their importance and trivialities, he is the one most passionate about the artistic merit. More so that Shayne himself, a fact which briefly rocks him and then comforts him as he goes on to take credit for all his ideas. Noble he is not. The rest of the cast is lovely, although they are merely pieces to build the joke. Wiest is the best of them, the airy inflator, still perpetuating the idea that she is as relevant and essential as she was in her prime. At a bar, she beats Cusack at his own game of self-righteousness by ordering two martinis for herself, and Shayne's answers illustrates just how self-centred they all are. She constantly shushes him with a "Don't speak!" every time he tries to wax lyrical, because it would ruin the idea of him. And if you had been paying attention to his dialogue, you would certainly agree.