It took eight years for George Romero to put his next film together after The Dark Half, and it ended up going straight to video. That's just kind of sad, but the film itself is honestly just not very good. It's got an interesting idea and visual at its heart, but the storytelling is so loose and unfocused, missing pretty much every moment it should in order to work, that it honestly kind of feels like Romero just gave up at a certain point early in production. Like, he didn't film enough or, by the time he got to the editing bay, he was just cutting the film down to its shortest length possible to get some kind of release. It's got some effective moments and the broken thematics are interesting to a certain extent, though, so it's not a complete waste of time. That's something.
Henry (Jason Flemyng) works at the magazine Bruiser, owned by the outrageous Russian émigré Milo (Peter Stormare). Henry has a dissatisfied wife, Janine (Nina Garbiras), with whom he lives in an unfinished mansion that is getting no work done on it because Henry is constantly low on funds. His investments, managed by his friend Jimmy (Andrew Tarbet), never seem to pan out as well as he would hope. His progress in his career at Bruiser is being stymied, perhaps in no small part because he has a friendship with Milo's ex-wife Rosie (Leslie Hope). Janine is getting tired of the whole stalled upward momentum situation, and she decides to have an affair with Milo at a barbeque he organizes for his employees. At this barbeque, Rosie has everyone make molds of their faces and paint the subsequent masks made. Henry and Janine have a fight going back home, Henry goes to bed angry, and he wakes up with a white mask permanently plastered to his face. Well, it actually is his face since it bleeds when he cuts himself trying to take it off.
So, what's this all about? Well, there are some lines of dialogue here and there that attempt to explain it. The earliest is Henry saying to Janine that she stole his identity from him. The dramatic focus is that he's a nobody, and the mask is a visual representation of that nobody-ness. Essentially, as the film plays out (and especially once we get to the resolution), it feels like the mask, the central visual motif of the film, feels underthought out.
What it's all supposed to be about is this central character of Henry standing up for himself, in the end. However, that gets so murky with the amount of violence he commits. He kills a fair few people for a variety of reasons, and it never feels like the people he's killing have gone nearly far enough to deserve death. Essentially, this makes Henry the bad guy, but as the film goes on, Romero obviously wants us to sympathize with him. He's a tortured soul who's been beaten down by the world. Granted, I've never actually seen Falling Down, but I do know that Michael Douglas was confronted with the idea that he had become the bad guy through his wonton criminality. That realization never comes to Henry in Bruiser. In fact, I don't think the film realizes that he's become such a monster.
A great highlight is his first kill. He's just woken up, and the housecleaner comes in. We've never seen this woman before. She's not pre-established at all, not even in dialogue with other characters. She immediately starts stealing little things like some silver from a box and money from his pocket. Henry smashes her head in. Is this justified? Not really. Does the movie make him out to be a bad guy? In the moment, it's unclear, but as the film goes on, the housecleaner is never mentioned again. He's also never really made to pay for any of this. He honestly feels like the "understandable" bad guy, a guy driven to violence by bad things in his life but ultimately needs to be taken down because he's causing damage to people who don't deserve it.
So, this is a portrait of a beaten down man who turns bad. Fine. I guess. Except, I really don't think Romero realized what that was. I think he took it in a more generic horror direction of spooky looking man goes killing people. He has said that it's not really a horror film (I'd agree), but instead it's a portrait of a man. I get that, but he's so unlikeable and honestly not that interesting. The character work on Henry feels razor thin to support something like this. I actually didn't get the sense that he was terribly beaten down in the opening act. He's a bit dismissed by Milo, but he credits Milo for his career, which seems to imply that it's strong, and his wife is very good looking. It's only at the barbeque that things really seem to unravel.
Anyway, Henry works through the people who have wronged him, and it crescendos at a metal masquerade. This is probably the best the film is from a primarily surface point of view. It's got a lot of color, motion, and events as the police hunt down Henry while everyone is in a mask. Henry tracks down Milo to exact his final revenge. Rosie is in the center (another bit of underdeveloped stuff is some dialogue here and there implying that Rosie and Henry loved each other once, but it goes nowhere). It works from a visceral point of view, but it's still the finale of a confused, empty film about a man who should be viewed as a monster.
The central visual of Flemyng in that white mask is interesting. The kills are quite well done. The finale is rather grand in its busyness. However, it's confused and truncated narratively. It doesn't really work. It's hard to believe that this is the result of Romero's eight year period in the cinematic wilderness. Sure, he'd been shopping stuff around and trying to get stuff made for all of it, but this is what gets made? I really feel like something just fell apart during production or editing. Honestly, it deserved to go straight to video.
Henry (Jason Flemyng) works at the magazine Bruiser, owned by the outrageous Russian émigré Milo (Peter Stormare). Henry has a dissatisfied wife, Janine (Nina Garbiras), with whom he lives in an unfinished mansion that is getting no work done on it because Henry is constantly low on funds. His investments, managed by his friend Jimmy (Andrew Tarbet), never seem to pan out as well as he would hope. His progress in his career at Bruiser is being stymied, perhaps in no small part because he has a friendship with Milo's ex-wife Rosie (Leslie Hope). Janine is getting tired of the whole stalled upward momentum situation, and she decides to have an affair with Milo at a barbeque he organizes for his employees. At this barbeque, Rosie has everyone make molds of their faces and paint the subsequent masks made. Henry and Janine have a fight going back home, Henry goes to bed angry, and he wakes up with a white mask permanently plastered to his face. Well, it actually is his face since it bleeds when he cuts himself trying to take it off.
So, what's this all about? Well, there are some lines of dialogue here and there that attempt to explain it. The earliest is Henry saying to Janine that she stole his identity from him. The dramatic focus is that he's a nobody, and the mask is a visual representation of that nobody-ness. Essentially, as the film plays out (and especially once we get to the resolution), it feels like the mask, the central visual motif of the film, feels underthought out.
What it's all supposed to be about is this central character of Henry standing up for himself, in the end. However, that gets so murky with the amount of violence he commits. He kills a fair few people for a variety of reasons, and it never feels like the people he's killing have gone nearly far enough to deserve death. Essentially, this makes Henry the bad guy, but as the film goes on, Romero obviously wants us to sympathize with him. He's a tortured soul who's been beaten down by the world. Granted, I've never actually seen Falling Down, but I do know that Michael Douglas was confronted with the idea that he had become the bad guy through his wonton criminality. That realization never comes to Henry in Bruiser. In fact, I don't think the film realizes that he's become such a monster.
A great highlight is his first kill. He's just woken up, and the housecleaner comes in. We've never seen this woman before. She's not pre-established at all, not even in dialogue with other characters. She immediately starts stealing little things like some silver from a box and money from his pocket. Henry smashes her head in. Is this justified? Not really. Does the movie make him out to be a bad guy? In the moment, it's unclear, but as the film goes on, the housecleaner is never mentioned again. He's also never really made to pay for any of this. He honestly feels like the "understandable" bad guy, a guy driven to violence by bad things in his life but ultimately needs to be taken down because he's causing damage to people who don't deserve it.
So, this is a portrait of a beaten down man who turns bad. Fine. I guess. Except, I really don't think Romero realized what that was. I think he took it in a more generic horror direction of spooky looking man goes killing people. He has said that it's not really a horror film (I'd agree), but instead it's a portrait of a man. I get that, but he's so unlikeable and honestly not that interesting. The character work on Henry feels razor thin to support something like this. I actually didn't get the sense that he was terribly beaten down in the opening act. He's a bit dismissed by Milo, but he credits Milo for his career, which seems to imply that it's strong, and his wife is very good looking. It's only at the barbeque that things really seem to unravel.
Anyway, Henry works through the people who have wronged him, and it crescendos at a metal masquerade. This is probably the best the film is from a primarily surface point of view. It's got a lot of color, motion, and events as the police hunt down Henry while everyone is in a mask. Henry tracks down Milo to exact his final revenge. Rosie is in the center (another bit of underdeveloped stuff is some dialogue here and there implying that Rosie and Henry loved each other once, but it goes nowhere). It works from a visceral point of view, but it's still the finale of a confused, empty film about a man who should be viewed as a monster.
The central visual of Flemyng in that white mask is interesting. The kills are quite well done. The finale is rather grand in its busyness. However, it's confused and truncated narratively. It doesn't really work. It's hard to believe that this is the result of Romero's eight year period in the cinematic wilderness. Sure, he'd been shopping stuff around and trying to get stuff made for all of it, but this is what gets made? I really feel like something just fell apart during production or editing. Honestly, it deserved to go straight to video.