Highly Overrated But Still Good

Disturbing yet enthralling

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This film can't make up its mind what it wants to be. Ostensibly it's about the 1930s gangster Dutch Shultz. However, the story predominantly rotates around the romance between Kidman and Deans characters. Yet it doesn't really sufficiently deal with either the romance or the life of Schultz. Neither does Schultz or the romance act as a secondary story to the other. So the movie loses out by not knowing what it is.

Billy Bathgate is really good gangster movie,but something is missing, Dustin is usual as ever,great Loren Dean performance, Nicole Kidman as marvelous in breathtaking scenes and surprisingly the unforgettable our hero in the past in Mission Impossible series Steven Hill on a very respectable and fine acting, almost unnoticed if didn't l used to read the opening credits....more helping the Lucky guy along the picture like a father,based in real facts on the thirties.Resume: First watch: 1996 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.25

When it was released in 1991, Robert Benton's "Billy Bathgate" was accused of being dull and unfocused. With the slick gangster movies of the 1990s now mimicked to death, today "Bathgate" almost seems interesting.The plot? Loren Dean plays Billy Bathgate, a South Bronx teenager who weasels his way into the criminal organization of Dutch Schultz (Dustin Hoffman). Along the way he befriends and falls in love with one of Schultz's molls, played by Nicole Kidman.Thematically, "Bathgate" doesn't do anything particularly new. What it does well is come at well-worn material from odd angles. Scenes that other crime films skirt over are dwelt upon, Kidman's character constantly mocks the macho pretensions of Schultz's gang, and Bill is an entirely passive character, forever riding a wave of blind luck. Hoffman, meanwhile, plays Schultz as a man of extremes. Though tiny and mild-mannered, he's constantly erupting into violence so as to hide insecurities. Virtually all the problems Schultz faces are a result of his inability to keep a lid on his emotions."Billy Bathgate" boasts excellent production design by Patrizia Von Brandenstein, who attempts to evoke the flavour of mid 1930s New York. Nesot Almendros' cinematography is also fine, packed with rich browns and blacks. Both are responsible for the film's better elements; its spaces, places and approaches to architecture. Bruce Willis and Steve Buscemi co-star. The film is loosely based on the life of Jewish mobster Arthur Flegenheimer.8/10 – See Zhang Yimou's "Shanghai Triad".

How rare this movie is without a doubt. Why? I'll tell you. It's a rare time to see (Hoffman) as a gangster, a rare time to see a bad big production mafia movie at the 1990s, and a rare time to see a bunch of fine artists work in so much hatred for their jobs.. Or that what seemed eventually ! After watching I was thinking of so many silly remarks could be said about such a movie (Actually that was partly during the watching itself !) and the examples are endless : How it's one of the silliest crime movies I have ever seen, and this is a list you can find at it movies like (Mobsters) from the very same year as long as we're talking mafia. How the director (Robert Benton) managed to hide the shortness of (Hoffman) in front of (Nicole Kidman)'s very tall figure ?! How the great (Dustin Hoffman) delivered a very weak performance, even if you compared it to (Al Pacino)'s similar character at (Dick Tracy - 1990), putting in mind how it was close to caricature, and I mean (Pacino)'s character ! How this movie contained maybe the ugliest nude scene ever, and I'm not referring to the scenes of (Loren Dean) which were nude of any possible acting's talent ! Moreover, How it's a movie without any peculiarity unless for having the word "poor" all over everything, despite the huge 50 million budget !? How you'd feel all the time that some elements (or actors) are in the wrong place. And eventually How there is a strong strange sense of apathy like all the cast's members were hating what they were doing, or not convinced enough ! All in all if you watched this movie then it's a bad memory however forgettable, and if you didn't.. Then How lucky you are !