On demand: "Bugsy"

Written by the subsequently disgraced James Toback and directed by Barry Levinson, 1991's Bugsy opens with scattered snapshots from the life of Thirties mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel: saying goodbye to his wife and children in New York, performing speech exercises in his car, availing himself of the finest shirts, picking up a chick in a lift and whisking her off to bed, enjoying some quality time with a sunlamp on a train to L.A.. As he's played by producer-star Warren Beatty, it allows Toback and Levinson to establish a parallel between Depression-era mobsters and the more contemporary heavies of showbusiness. Even before Siegel is seen feeding tough-guy lines to movie star pal George Raft (Joe Mantegna), and long before his grand opening (of the hotel-casino complex he builds in Vegas) proves a total flop, it's a case of same racket, different era. This Siegel is a man with a lot on: monitoring the toings and froings of the Mob game, keeping his wife onside, while simultaneously initiating an altogether tumultuous affair with the one woman of this period who dared stand up to him - the actress Virginia Hill, played by Annette Bening, a.k.a. the soon-to-be Mrs. Warren Beatty. So it's a self-portrait of sorts. But here's the curious thing about Bugsy, and the thing that short-circuits any idea we're watching an entirely selective and largely romanticised portrait of a mass murderer: it's not a terribly flattering self-portrait. Watching Beatty-as-Ben strut into an opera singer's Beverly Hills home with a bag of cash in order to seize what he believes should rightfully be his dream house, he appears less a bug than a parasite. Sure, he may be superficially appealing, but we long - as certain of the real Bugsy's associates surely longed - to see this guy squished.

It being a Beatty project, there remains a certain vanity in play: there's barely a scene that doesn't feature Bugsy front and centre, stopping traffic, pitching woo, making a fuss. But the movie also appears well aware its protagonist is a vain chump, and it's often funny in describing his vanity. Above all else, this Bugsy is a big blabbermouth ("do you always talk this much before you do it?," asks one sexual conquest) whose dealings most often manifest as farce: conducting business over the phone with his wife while ushering his latest flame into the boudoir, having his head scrambled when Hill takes up with other men, making haphazard plans to assassinate Mussolini before swanning off to try and conquer Nevada. Beatty is hardly convincing as a tough guy: he can't throw a serious punch, and you suspect the supporting cast could get the better of him by pointing out a pretty girl on set and then blindsiding him with the other hand. But he's certainly qualified to play a character who's bitten off more than he can chew. No-one back in 1991 was better suited to embody ego, hubris, overreach, a fly-by-night engaged in a fruitless quest for permanence, and Levinson makes the inspired decision to surround this goofball gangster - setting out his vision for the casino while still clad in the same chef's hat he donned to ice his daughter's birthday cake - with serious actors whom you feel could at any moment snuff Beatty out like birthday candles (Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Bening, the latter every bit as memorable as this role demands). This script arms them all with tough, snappy, salty dialogue - it's a Forties movie with Nineties cussing; its critical and commercial success might well have sparked the subsequent neo-noir revival - and something unsaid besides. It does now seem telling that Bugsy's screenwriter was later busted for demonstrating comparably unbalanced, unhealthy appetites: say what you like about Toback - and you probably can nowadays - but he knew whereof these characters spoke.

Bugsy is now streaming via Netflix.