After staying at the Las Vegas Flamingo, and spending a substantial amount of time browsing through the artifacts of old Vegas at the Las Vegas History Museum at the Tropicana Hotel, this is one movie I wanted to watch when I got back. Not that I'm a fan of Warren Beatty (I only watched his Dick Tracy movie),but I'm interested in the Hollywood retelling of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel's story.

For the uninitiated, Siegel was a gangster, who loves his family, but is as horny as he can get. He falls in love with the Hollywood glamour and life, and comes to know his new mistress, a starlet called Virginia Hill (Annette Bening),who's known in some circles as the village bicycle - everyone's had a ride.

Seigel shares a love-hate relationship with Hill, and it is always bumpy. And little does he know that this love will ultimately cause his downfall and demise. Love aside, there's also plenty of scenes that shows Siegel's violent nature (hey, he's a gangster),and scenes too that highlights his disregard for money - he spends lavishly. There's a subplot about Mussolini too, which highlights Seigel's eccentricity.

But he does have a vision, and that was having the foresight of predicting how Las Vegas would become as important as can be, with the erection of the Hoover Dam to provide it with electricity. He's the one with the vision of creating something in the middle of the desert, which we know today as the Strip, with casinos, hotels, and entertainment from class acts. His vision started off as The Flamingo hotel, which over blew its budget by almost 5 million dollars (at that time). Of course, when you're dealing with mob money, you'd better be careful, as they become impatient with his grander vision of controlling a casino, city, state, and ultimately having the power to influence presidential elections.

Directed by Barry Levinson, Bugsy is the tale of that one man's vision. It's well acted, with a superb supporting cast. Keeping true to the finale, watch out for that flying eye too. And yes, Beatty and Bening met on set, and married thereafter.

Sadly, this Code 1 DVD contains no special extras.

Though Bugsy is hardly the real story of Benjamin Siegal, the criminal mastermind who turned Las Vegas into a desert pleasure town, Warren Beatty has captured the essence of the man. Bugsy got several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Beatty. Unfortunately it came out during the year of Silence of the Lambs which was the Best Picture in 1991 and Anthony Hopkins beat Beatty for Best Actor.

Certainly Ben Siegal was at the top of the racketeering profession, he was shrewd, he was connected to the rightest people there were in that world, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, he had it all. He was also a compulsive womanizer and had as Ben Kingsley who played Meyer Lansky put it, no respect for money. When he met Virginia Hill those two elements of his character destroyed him.

Annette Bening is Virginia Hill and I'm wondering why Beatty and director Barry Levinson didn't give her a trace of southern accent since the real Virginia Hill was born in Alabama. Of course after the film, Bening became Mrs. Wareen Beatty and the off screen romance certainly added to the portrait of the totally obsessed Siegal with Hill.

Harvey Keitel plays Mickey Cohen who was Siegal's number one lieutenant and took over eventually the west coast territory for the syndicate and does a good job as the tough as nails street kid who Siegal allies himself with in a gangland power play. Keitel and Kingsley both were nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but lost to Jack Palance in City Slickers.

One character who isn't mentioned much in talking about this film is George Raft as played by Joe Mantegna. Raft who was born and grew up in Hell's Kitchen got his start in mob owned speakeasies during Prohibition and knew every one there was of importance in the underworld. It's probably the reason that the story of Ben Siegal was not brought to the screen until eleven years after Raft died.

Bugsy only took home one Oscar, for Costume Design and the players sure do have a Forties look about them. Bugsy is one of Warren Beatty's best films and should not be missed.

Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel (Warren Beatty) is a married mob enforcer and fixer. He hates being called Bugsy. People fear him and he knows it. He goes to Hollywood to accompany actor George Raft (Joe Mantegna) and falls for starlet Virginia Hill (Annette Bening). On a trip to the desert outpost of Las Vegas, Bugsy comes up with an idea to build the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel Casino.

This has an overt gangster style. The story could be tighter but the performances are great. Bening is cool and Beatty is terrific. He is utterly charming. He is funny with the name. He is threatening when he needs to be. It's a great performance.