Bruiser (2000)

I got the chance to see Bruiser at a small screening in the presence of George A. Romero himself when he visited my college campus. I thought it was very interesting, a well written story as well as tightly directed. At the time I met with Romero, he wasn't sure if it would be released theatrically or move straight to video/DVD. He did tell me that it was produced by a small Canadian film company and may not be released in the U.S. for quite some time. Still, the Romero fans that I watched this with seemed to enjoy every second of it, as did I. I would refer this film to anyone who enjoys the dark comedy/cult classics such as Pulp Fiction or A Clockwork Orange.

Fmovies: There is about 20 minutes of interesting movie here, in the opening preamble and in the grand guignol of the masquerade party. In between, this is poor.

I love Romero films, for, amongst other things, their mixture of grotesque violence and gallows humour. With Bruiser, apart from the delicious viciousness of the set-up of our faceless non-hero, this provided some peculiar and unsatisfactory combination of Zorro and Death Wish, without atmosphere, coherence or even any real energy. Did the whole budget get blown on the set for the masquerade? I wanted to like it, was expecting to at least enjoy it in a time-passing way, and was only bored and frustrated by it.

so that watching this piece of tripe might have been less painful. Then again, I would have had to listen to the dialogue.

Speaking of which, GAR needs to stop reading Mickey Spillane when it comes to cop dialogue. "Dame"? "Cup of joe"? Those references went out in, uh, 1955.

The concept of the doormat-cum-revenge seeker is fine, but the delivery just plain sucks. For example, the first kill is the maid, and made no sense whatsoever...it's even her first scene! There's no prior information that she's been stealing or anything, yet the first thing we hear is her loudly throwing silverware into a bag. Riiight. And she doesn't fit the mold of the next victims...all of whom have been deceitful and cheating for years.

Next is this mask thing he's supposed to be wearing. Dumb. There can be other, better ways a person can lose his identity.

And the relationship with Rosie. Wha? How did that happen? Where did it come from? There's nothing is the supposed backstory that shows why she would even give him the time of day, plus it does little for the overall story plot.

And the death scene of the Overacted Czech. A death laser. Sure. I guess it was nothing more than a stupid scene to a fantastically stupid movie.

Bruiser fmovies. The young executive of a publicity agency Henry Creedlow (Jason Flemyng) is a man that has repressed morbid thoughts and is walked over by most of his acquaintances: his wife is cheating him with his boss and stealing money of his investments with his best friend; his housemaid is frequently stealing his house and offending him in Spanish; even his annoying poodle does not respect him. While in his daily morning routine listening to a talk show on the radio, he hears a man committing suicide live because he had been felt miserable and disrespected for a long time, and Henry feels impressed with the tragic event. On the next morning, he wakes up with his face covered by a white mask, changing his personality and seeking revenge against those that have humiliated him.

"Bruiser" is a very weird and one of the worst (if not the worst) movies of George A. Romero. The theme about a man that has a breakdown after years of failure and bad treatment, causing the loss of his identity and making him faceless to murder those that have somehow damaged his life is original, but something does not work well in the screenplay of this movie. In my opinion, the character of Henry should be more developed before the supernatural mask appears in his face, and the behavior of the nasty and extravagant character of Milo Styles, performed by Peter Stormare, should be more restrained to make him believable. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "A Máscara do Terror" ("The Mask of Terror")

But not in the way we were led to suspect from the packaging. If you believe the box, Bruiser is a thrilling joy ride from acclaimed director Romero, or something like that.

What Bruiser really is is psychological melodrama/thriller, mixed in with some wicked black comedy. Jason Flemying is excellent as Henry, and Stormare surprised me incredibly as the flamboyant, bad-ass publisher of the in-movie magazine, entitled (what else?) "Bruiser."

I've grown used to seeing character actor Stormare in character roles, usually benign or slightly creepy (Dancer In The Dark, Million Dollar Hotel), and Flemying as vaguely menacing (Lock,, Stock; From Hell), but here both actors play against their normal image to reveal great depths of skill...both are totally believable in their roles, which adds a lot to the film.

For those who know nothing about it...Flemying plays a mag exec who is downtrodden and stomped on by nearly everybody...Romero really makes you feel the depths of Hell this poor guy's in. One day, he wakes up to find that his face has been replaced by a featurless white mask...what does this say about his identity? Who IS this faceless man?

Over the rest of the film, Flemying and Romero explore the subject ruthlessly (with plenty of violence, of course, because, well, this is George Romero here)...and the viewer is left with a conundrum similar to the end of a Lynch film: Did this happen? And if it happened, well...what next?

For lovers of challenging film, this one is a keeper....bizarre, disturbing, and ultimately meaningful, this is Blue Velvet's benign nephew. Go see it or rent it ASAP.

Jason Flemyng plays Henry Creedlow, the peon poster child, in this unusual film from George Romero. Flemyng's wife constantly berates him. She's having affairs behind his back. His boss is a jerk. His "best friend" takes advantage of him. He gets no respect at work. Even his maid is ripping him off. He feels faceless, and so he becomes. Can Henry find his identity? What will he have to do to get one?

Unfortunately, a large part of what makes this film unusual for George Romero is that it's so bad. Nothing in it ever quite works, although I had hopes for the first five minutes, before Romero began his attempt to tell a story/allegory.

There are a couple things that aren't complete disasters. The cinematography is nice enough, the production design isn't bad (and there are a couple fabulous eye candy homes), the music is okay, and there are appearances by Tom Atkins, one of my favorite character actors, and The Misfits, who are at least interesting. That's it. Those are the sole reasons I gave this a 3 rather than a 1 or 2.

In a nutshell, the problem with Bruiser is this: there's not so much a story as a collection of "quirky touches". Romero, who both wrote and directed, doesn't bother to explain anything, but there are a number of things that are very weird. Now, I'm usually a big fan of weirdness, surrealism, etc. But beneath the quirky touches, there is an extremely pedestrian story with a revenge motif. At one point, there must have been a script (Romero admits they had many rewrites) that had Bruiser as more of a noirish thriller, although only the slightest hints of it remain. The combination makes the quirky touches more annoying than satisfying. They don't seem authentic. Romero has never seemed like a surrealist/absurdist and it doesn't ring true here either. So it's difficult to say why the quirky touches are there except that Romero was aiming for metaphor and allegory. But that aspect doesn't work, either, because he tends to bash you over the head with his metaphors. They're so obvious and advertised that they no longer function as metaphors, but just a very incoherent script.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about above. Creedlow works for a magazine named Bruiser. Yet, it's a fashion magazine. Why is there a fashion magazine named Bruiser? Who would buy that? We're never told. I figured that maybe it was going to be the last name of the publisher, Milo (Peter Stormare). It wasn't, his last name is Styles (wouldn't that guy in that industry name his magazine "Styles" in that case?). If Bruiser had been Milo's last name, that would have made it nicely ironic, but still sellable in the context of the story. It's probably still supposed to be ironic, and a commentary on the fashion/beauty industries. But it's too in-your-face to work the way it's presented. Additionally, we spend a lot of time at the magazine--in the offices, with the publisher, with other employees in various social situations--so why don't we learn more about the magazine and the personalities involved in it? All we know is that there's a fashion magazine named Bruiser, and they pick out cover models by hanging a number of pictures on a lightboard and "voting". That's it.

Another example: Stormare is extremely annoying as Milo. He's supposed to be over-the-top and annoying, but it's too ridiculous to work, unless intended as comedy (it isn't, and it