Amazon.com: Billy Bathgate: Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, Loren Dean, Bruce Willis, Steven Hill, Steve Buscemi, Billy Jaye, John Costelloe, Timothy Jerome, Stanley Tucci, Mike Starr, Robert F. Colesberry, Stephen Joyce, Frances Conroy, Moira Kelly, Kevin Corrigan, Noel Derecki, Josh Phillip Weinstein, Danny Zorn, Rob Kramer, Robert Benton: Video

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
The oily allure of underground power is compelling. During the heyday of New York's mob scene, it was more than a mysterious, dynamic draw, it was a ticket out of poverty and stepping stone to notoriety. Based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate is the story of a street-smart boy (Loren Dean) who, after a chance encounter with racketeering kingpin Dutch Schultz (Dustin Hoffman), sets out to apprentice himself to the Mafia and ride the roller-coaster life of a gangster.

Central to the story development is the idea of fate and circumstance. Except for Billy, who is merely a criminal voyeur, all the characters play out the hand they were dealt, good or bad, live or die. Moving from misunderstood businessman, struggling to legitimize his line of work, to a steely, vengeful egomaniac, Dustin Hoffman gives a powerful performance. The role of Schultz is so strong, however, that Hoffman overpowers the cast, leaving some characters underdeveloped. Despite being the movie's namesake, Billy always seems a bit vacuous and leaves the audience wondering if he appreciates and values his luck. Bo Widerberg, played by Bruce Willis, is a slick gangster with a weasely demeanor and Drew Preston (Nicole Kidman), the girl to be fought over. Although Kidman's performance isn't her most memorable, she does a good job in balancing and evolving her character amid all the gunslinging and testosterone of the mob. If you're a Hoffman fan, and like gangster flicks, this movie's for you. --Jeff Leinaweaver

From The New Yorker
A refined, stately gangster movie, based on E. L. Doctorow's refined, stately novel about the decline and fall of Dutch Schultz. The director, Robert Benton, and the screenwriter, Tom Stoppard, are scrupulously faithful to the book. Their studied, reverential approach has a perverse kind of appropriateness: it reflects all too accurately the novel's high-art air of importance. (Doctorow's literary exquisiteness had already drained the vulgar energy from the material.) Actually, the movie is marginally livelier than the novel, but this material is much more familiar to moviegoers than to readers of prestigious, ambitious fiction: the filmmakers' evocation of violent crime in Prohibition-era New York can only be seen in the context of the rich American gangster-movie tradition, and this picture simply doesn't have the raw vitality and the headlong drive that the classics of the genre-from the original "Scarface" to "Once Upon a Time in America"-have led us to expect. The movie sustains our interest mostly by virtue of two remarkable performances. Steven Hill plays Schultz's middle-aged business manager, Otto Berman, and his acting is miraculously nuanced and complex: we feel as if we can read the whole history of the gang's triumphs and disasters in Berman's cunning, weary eyes. And Dustin Hoffman, as Schultz, is terrific. He's very funny and volatile. Playing a mean, stupid man, Hoffman-probably the most intelligent actor of his generation-is terrifyingly precise about the human deficiencies that make a great, legendary crook. Also with Loren Dean (in the title role) and Nicole Kidman. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker