“Bugsy would not have been the densely detailed and complexly imagined film that it is without the pooled-together contributions of producer-star Warren Beatty, screenwriter James Toback and director Barry Levinson.

“But one wonders what might have resulted had the authorial strands been pulled apart and had Mr. Beatty been able to make another of his studies of an American naïf (following Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde, George the hairstylist of Shampoo and John Reed, the radical journalist of Reds) blundering as best he can through the social upheavals of an era; or had Mr. Toback, with his fascination with sex, power and the romantic fatalism of the gambler; or had Mr. Levinson fully indulged his nostalgia for a lost era of sartorial elegance and tastefully lighted interiors.

“Levinson was the dominant force on the set, and the film duly reflects his fundamentally comic sensibility (even when the material dips into darkness) and affection for attention-grabbing period detail.” — from Dave Kehr’s 12.12.06 review of the Bugsy extended-cut DVD.