Robert Benton directed Billy Bathgate, a 1991 biographical gangster film, starring Loren Dean as the title character and Dustin Hoffman as real-life gangster Dutch Schultz.
The film co-stars Nicole Kidman, Steven Hill, Steve Buscemi, and Bruce Willis.
Although Billy is a fictional character, other characters in the film were real people.
The screenplay was adapted by British writer Tom Stoppard from E.L. Doctorow’s 1989 novel of the same name.
Narrative Premise:
Billy Behan (Loren Dean) is a poor Irish-American teenager from the Bronx in the 1920s. One day, he catches the attention of wealthy Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz (Dustin Hoffman). Changing his last name to Bathgate after a local street, Billy goes to work for Schultz’s organization, serving as a gofer for Schultz.
Billy is present observes Schults commit two brutal murders: his trusted lieutenant, Bo Weinberg (Bruce Willis), who Schultz believes betrayed him after learning that Weinberg has been secretly meeting with rival bosses, is dumped in the water wearing cement shoes, and his top enforcer, “Big” Julie Martin (Mike Starr), is shot dead by Dutch for stealing $50,000 from the organization’s accounts, defiantly stating that he’s “entitled” to it. Despite this,
Billy comes to see Schultz as a father figure and the mob as his chance to make it big.
Doctorow distanced himself from the film due to the extensive deviations from the book.
It received negative reviews and was a box office bomb, grossing a mere $15.5 million against its $48 million budget.