Bruiser (2000)

Waste of time

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This film seems to suffer primarily from improper promotion. Not a typical horror/Ramero feature whatsoever...Lovely things about this film include: bitingly clever scrip with many satisfying full circles, ridiculous attention to detail in even the most trivial shot, energetic and convincing performances, and cavernously deep themes on identity, shame and self determination. Life is hard when you've been conditioned to bow down and look past and live with the unforgivable .This might very well be American Psycho mixed with Vanilla Sky, for the romantic SOB. Beautiful film. Gosh darn those flaws, but keep in mind it's not no slasher flick. It's a delving deep within, to a place in which we can all in some way identify. Watchable multiple times, tasty each. Cheers, E

There is a tendency among modern superhero (films) to portray their particular marked crusader as some sort of flawed, anti-hero - take Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy, Robert Downey Jr in the Iron Man films and The Watchmen.Bruiser was released in 2000, just slightly before this trend really took off. It's about a put-upon worker who wakes up to find his features have changed to that of a plain white mask. Therefore, now no one knows who he is, he seeks revenge on all those who scorned him. This sounds like a basic sort of superhero movie plot and, courtesy of zombie-lord George Romero, he adds a bit of horror into it too.Does it work? Sadly, not really.Although it could have been decent enough, it suffers from a lack of stars, a clunky script (Romero also wrote it and, as anyone who has watched his more recent zombie films will know he's kind off gone off the boil with his pen) and quite possibly budget. There's no real action and only a few kills. However, my biggest gripe was how our (anti?) hero was never really the put-upon loser he was billed as. Henry Creedlow works for a famous fashion magazine (think Vogue etc), has a beautiful wife, lives in a big house, drives a fast car and plays the stock market. From this we're supposed to feel sorry for him. Okay, he gets pushed around a bit, but, for me, it just didn't make him as much as a loser as the film suggested. Then there's the 'super villain.' Only he's not. Captain America fought Red Skull, with Batman it was the Joker. Here, the 'villain' is an annoyingly loud guy who sleeps with more women than Peter Stringfellow. He's not trying to kill anyone, nor is he trying to take over the world. He's just an idiot. Again, hardly someone you can truly hate (get annoyed by - yes - but not hate).Full marks for Jason Flemyng for his America accent. Maybe Bruiser will get a remake one day and give it a budget and a script makeover. In the meantime, probably one to avoid. Sorry, George - I still love Dawn of the Dead.

Bruiser tells the tale of Henry Creedlow (Jason Flemyng) who works as an executive on a fashion magazine called 'Bruiser' & he apparently lets everyone 'walk all over him' according to just about everyone he know's. Henry's boss is an a-hole & is having an affair with his wife Janine (Nina Garbiras) who is also stealing lots of money off Henry in partnership with his best friend James (Andrew Tarbet) & even his maid Mariah (Tamsin Kelsey) is stealing off him. Henry has become a nobody, he has lost all his identity & has become a faceless drone in the crowd who no-one notices or cares about to such an extent that Henry wakes up one morning to find his face has been replaced with a featureless, colourless white mask with no identifying features. Henry uses this bizarre twist of fate to his own advantage & sets out to punish those who wronged him & turned him into the faceless entity he has become...This French, Canadian & American co-production was written & directed by George A. Romero who has had a somewhat erratic career & Bruiser was in fact his first directorial film in seven years him not having directed anything since the Stephen King adaptation The Dark Half (1993) which is actually better than Bruiser but that's another story & after he had directed Bruiser it was another five years before he directed again with Land of the Dead (2005) which is also better than Bruiser but that too is another story. So, in the space of twelve long years Romero who was hailed as the greatest horror director of his generation during the late 70's & early 80's after making genre classics like Night of the Living Dead (1968), Martin (1977), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Creepshow (1982) & Day of the Dead (1985) only made one film, this. Bruiser is a departure from what Romero usually makes in one sense that Bruiser is an off-beat somewhat odd-ball psychological thriller rather than a straight horror flick but but it does retain Romero's penchant for social commentary as the whole film revolves around the idea of a man being a faceless entity in today's uncaring society & finally snapping in order to gain back his identity. As a basic high brow concept I thought the idea was fine & I quite liked some of the ideas & themes Romero explores here & I actually related to some of them (especially the fantasy Henry had about squishing the rude woman's head under the train wheels!) but I don't think the film does much with them & ends up like a boring slasher film as Henry kills a few of the people he doesn't like & that's about it. At almost 100 odd minutes the film goes on for quite a while & I did start to get bored with the concept well before the end, the supporting character's are all very unlikable which doesn't help & although it tries to be challenging, relevant & meaningful I personally didn't really take much from the film.Those looking at Romero's past films & hoping for some horror & gore will surely be disappointed with Bruiser, there's a brief scene in which a woman has her head squashed by a train although nothing too graphic is shown, a man is shot in the chest, there's a dream sequence in which Henry commits suicide by shooting himself in the head, a woman is hanged & that's about it. Was I the only one who thought Henry looked daft with that white mask face? I thought he looked like one of those stereotypical French mime artists with white face paint! There's no real scares here, the film has a nice clean middle class look to it but there's no atmosphere.According to the IMDb this had a budget of about $5,000,000 which does surprise me somewhat, I can't really see where all that money went to be honest. Bruiser was the first film directed by Romero not to be made in or around Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, it was actually filmed in Ontario in Canada. The acting is pretty good from a decent cast although Peter Stormare as the annoyingly obnoxious Milo Styles was a little OTT for me while genre favourite Tom Atkins has a fun role as a cynical cop.Bruiser is certainly something a bit different although while I did like the concept I don't think enough was done with it & to be frank Romero is better than this & should stick to straight horror which he thankfully largely has.

Bruiser (2000) * 1/2 (out of 4) A business exec (Jason Flemyng) is abused by co-workers, friends and his wife and all of this leads to him having morbid thoughts about killing them. One day he wakes up and his face is gone and in its place is a white mask like thing that takes away all of his features so he goes out for revenge. This was Romero's return to the genre and his first movie since 1993's The Dark Half and sadly it's probably the worst I've seen from him. The screenplay, by Romero, is all over the place and it's never quite clear what Romero is going for. As to be expected, Romero throws in his typical social commentary but he really isn't saying too much. Flemyng is decent in his role but it's Peter Stormare who steals the show as his sleazy boss who has an affair with his wife. Tom Atkins is wasted as a detective. I'm really not sure what could have been done to make this movie better but I'd say you would have to blow up the screenplay and start from scratch. It's a shame that a talent like Romero has made so few films over the past thirty-years but I guess that's the price he pays to stay away from the studios. With that said, he has proved to be good with studio films and something like The Dark Half is a lot better than this film.