7. Bulworth (1998)
Warren Beatty has always been a very outspoken and risk taking film-maker as a director/star. He tackled the communist movement in the epic drama Reds and in his 1998 pet project Bulworth, he moves full tilt on another controversial subject-racism and class systems in the political comedy drama. Beatty plays burnt out California Senator Jay Billington Bulworth who observes that his life and career have no meaning, so after a chance encounter with a few African-American campaign volunteers and a night of hard partying and drugs, he decides to take another approach to his campaign. Bulworth begins telling the truth. Not only does he speak the truth but he starts gangster rapping the truth to his constituents and financial supporters, shaking the foundations in his state to the core. What both Beatty the star and director achieved with Bulworth was poking fun at the political machine and also what the white collar class perceives as acceptable behavior in the blue collar black community. The message is strong and potent, yet a film that takes these risks was not without its controversy. Some found Beatty's message to be too over saturated in stereotypes, relying on the ridiculousness of the concept of an old white man rapping to send the message home, while others found negative portrayals of African-Americans throughout the film. Either way, Warren Beatty's Bulworth is a masterful thesis on the truth that politics is afraid of facing and the liberation of allowing it to take over.