'Rules Don't Apply': A disappointing return for Warren Beatty

When a Hollywood legend returns with their first project after a seemingly self-imposed 15 year hiatus from acting and directing, it only stands to reason that there would be an expectation of greatness.

Warren Beatty, one of my personal movie-making heroes, has earned a reputation for meticulousness, pickiness, and fierce intelligence, and so while he has certainly made his fair share of bombs I had somewhat high hopes for his Howard Hughes-themed 2016 film Rules Don't Apply.

For decades, Beatty had been wanting to tell Hughes' story -- and that should surprise no one who's followed his career.

Like Hughes, Beatty was also an eccentric playboy who achieved astonishing success at a fairly young age. Hughes' descent into madness has made him both a glamorous and mythic figure and any number of fascinating films could be inspired by distinct periods of his life.

Martin Scorsese's infinitely superior and more focused The Aviator chose to portray Hughes at his best, an obsessive, driven man with a passion for innovation. That film showed glimmers of his downfall, too, but wisely told a fairly simple story with style and panache.

Beatty's advanced age has put his production in an awkward position. I imagine had he made this film in this prime the resulting film would have resembled The Aviator a lot more than what he would up with, which feels much more like an afterthought than a decades in the making passion project.

Warren Beatty

The film is nominally about a younger couple, played admirably by up-and-coming actors Alden Ehrenreich (the future Han Solo) and Lily Collins, and the complicated, blossoming romance between them during the golden age of Hollywood. The trouble is their courtship is far less interesting than Hughes' story and while the film captures the spirit of old Hollywood well, it's pacing and storyline are impossibly dated.

Meanwhile, Beatty does show flashes of his past brilliance but he also feels tentative and unsure. Is his Hughes a wily and perceptive charmer or a doddering bully, or both? Much of his performance is shot in darkness and I have the sneaking suspicion has more do with Beatty's vanity than character development. And the timeline is so murky that it's hard to grasp at any given time whether he is too old for the part of not.

He can still attract big name actors for this films, but the talents of his wife Annette Bening, Matthew Broderick, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Candice Bergen are all wasted here, and as the film enters its second hour it becomes increasingly disjointed and clunky.

It's hard to understand who the intended audience for this film was, especially since this terrain has already been traversed so affectively (and more accurately) by The Aviator. It's too light and frothy to be a real awards contender, but unlike Beatty's last great film 1998's Bulworth, it's not raucous or rambunctious enough to be consistently fun.

Tragically, Beatty's most memorable recent moment -- involving a Best Picture announcement debacle at the Academy Awards -- has not only eclipsed this film but what could have been a resurrected cinematic legacy.

This legacy, which includes classics like Bonnie & Clyde, The Parallax View, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Dick Tracy and Bugsy, has faded in the memories of many in this Netflix and Chill era, and that makes me sad.

And unfortunately Rules Don't Apply won't supply any positive new memories.