BEATTY'S WELL-WRITTEN `BULWORTH' A VISUAL, VERBAL TOUR DE FORCE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

A senator spends a lost, pre-primary weekend holed up in his Washington office, watching tapes of his empty, mean-spirited campaign commercials and weeping.

Despite all of the brilliant, hilarious and bold social commentary that we'll soon be hearing in Warren Beatty's astonishing new film ``Bulworth,'' this opening sequence - the only one Beatty essentially plays mute - speaks the most eloquently to the disheartening state of politics in the media-saturated, big-money-bought, poll-possessed 1990s.

It's evidence that ``Bulworth,'' the best-written studio release since ``As Good as It Gets,'' is a visual as well as a verbal tour de force.

Beatty is California Sen. Jay Bulworth, and by the spring of 1996, he's seen his personal power game degenerate from '60s idealism to a grinding business of trading favors for campaign contributions. He's had it, breaks down, and before returning to L.A. for one final campaign swing, makes what he thinks are his last dirty deals: a $10 million life policy from an insurance lobbyist and a hit contracted through a mob intermediary with lousy health.

Both taken out on himself.

Exhausted, drunk and with what he thinks is nothing to lose, Bulworth decides to speak the truth on his final stump. He insults African-Americans at a South Central church (while giving them the hard truth that, if they really want the Democratic Party to look out for their interests, they'll have to contribute more money). He insults Jews at an entertainment industry soiree (then makes the film's riskiest political statement, in the age of ``Titanic'' and ``Deep Impact'' anyway, by asking why smart people make lousy movies).

Then he insults both his corporate backers and anyone who takes rap music seriously by breaking into ridiculous, radical rhyme at a big contributors brunch. This comes after an all-nighter at an underground hip-hop club, where he evolved from out-of-place-old-white-guy to last-DJ-standing by sunup, and became infatuated with Nina (Halle Berry), a dreadlocked homegirl with an informed world view and a secret agenda.

Of course, she gives Bulworth a reason to live. But can he cancel that contract on himself in time?

All of Bulworth's truth-telling misanthropy - and a lot more - is marvelously amusing. And, unlike such political satires as ``Primary Colors'' and ``Wag the Dog,'' it's genuinely political, addressing every prejudice, hypocrisy and injustice that plagues contemporary American society.

Or so it seems. If there's a flaw in ``Bulworth's'' earth-scorching cultural comedy, it's that Beatty the writer-director-star plays it a little too much like the consummate Hollywood politician he is. Despite the film's up-to-the-minute attitude and potshots at HMOs and the like, Beatty basically is endorsing the leftish, anti-establishment values that he always has, from ``Bonnie and Clyde'' three decades ago through ``McCabe and Mrs. Miller,'' ``The Parallax View,'' ``Shampoo'' and ``Reds.''

But since ``Bulworth's'' core message ultimately will reassure liberals, Beatty front-loads the senator's rants with assaults on political correctness, as if to provide more conservative moviegoers with something to nod and laugh at, too. It's a shrewd move, like Beatty's often are, but a commercial one for a movie that makes a big deal of its independent, confrontational nature.

That quibble aside - along with the gripe that we've seen the ``stop my suicide hit'' plot line before - ``Bulworth'' blazes with wit and impudent ingenuity.

It's an almost all-Warren show, although the lead guy makes smart use of everyone from Oliver Platt and Joshua Malina as the senator's increasingly flummoxed handlers to - at long last - Larry King as himself.

But it's Beatty's own willingness to trash his legendary vanity (that Carly Simon song was about him, right?) that makes ``Bulworth'' one of the funniest message films ever.

Everyday people mistake Bulworth for Clint Eastwood, and worse. Just as the century's top makeout artist zooms in for the big clench with the much-younger Berry, age takes its toll - even contemporaries Woody Allen and Jack Nicholson haven't risked a scene like this.

But most of all, there's the ongoing, absurd spectacle of Bulworth's transformation into an over-the-hill boy from the 'hood. It's ridiculous yet, somehow, perfectly pitched and judged, a deft tightrope walk performed with a woozy stagger.

Beatty has undercut his star persona before, but never in so comically rich a way. As the senator turns his back on everything that he knows works and discovers that long-crushed values still matter, the filmmaker is artistically energized, not only by going against the current Hollywood grain, but by subverting most of what we think of when we hear the name Warren Beatty.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Bulworth'' (R; language, drug use, racism, children in jeopardy, violence).

The stars: Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, Oliver Platt, Don Cheadle.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Warren Beatty. Written by Beatty and Jeremy Pikser. Produced by Beatty and Pieter Jan Brugge. Released by 20th Century Fox.

Running time: One hour, 47 minutes.

Playing: Century 14, Century City.

Our rating: Three and One Half Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Nina (Halle Berry) gives a disillusioned veteran politician (Warren Beatty) a reason to live in ``Bulworth.''