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Velvet Buzzsaw

A review by Brooks Rich

I don't have much to say about this one because I am worried I will have trouble coming up with coherent points. Velvet Buzzsaw is one of the worst films I've ever seen. I am stunned that a film can be this bad and attract such a large and impressive cast. I am beyond disappointed because I loved Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy and Jake Gyllenhall's other collaboration. That film is one of my favorites of the 2010s'. But this thing, that for some reason Netflix decided to release upon the world, is almost unwatchable. Nothing works here. I didn't like a single frame of this film. The characters are unlikeable, the story is ludicrous and never fully explains itself, and the violence is never brutal or absurd enough to be interesting. It's weird because it's too much on screen at one point and just kind of dull at others. It's ambitious and fails in it's ambition. I do admire ambition but not when nothing works.

The plot, what little there is, surrounds the death of an old man who is discovered to be a painting prodigy. A collection of art critics, collectors, artists, and all around unlikeable douchebags become enchanted by the man's paintings. Too bad anyone with one in their possession is soon violently killed. That's it. The rest of the film has Jake Gyllenhall completely overacting as an art critic and Rene Russo and Toni Collette playing some of the most despicable people in cinema this year. How does Collette follow the absolutely stunning Hereditary from last year with this? I get that Gilroy wanted to make a horror satire of the art world but in my opinion it fails at every aspect. I imagine someone might find this worth a watch. Maybe. But for me it's not scary, it's not funny, it's not interesting. It's a waste of time.

0/5


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