鶹
Customer Review
- Reviewed in Canada on January 25, 2015Tusk is the most outrageous, vulgar, and bewildering film I've seen in some time. I can't say that I didn't enjoy parts of it, but ultimately, it never manages to get its feet under itself. In terms of tone, pacing, narrative, and mise en scene, it's like watching Bambi on ice. It hits the right note now and then, but they are buried in a barrage of off- key notes. The end result is a cacophony.
Tusk's most solid assets are the performances of Park and Long. The best scenes are between these two, in the rare moments when director Smith plays it straight for scares. In fact, these scenes were so effective, so chilling, that I wondered how Smith didn't realize he had a genuinely good horror film in his grasp. Had he made the film a flat- out horror movie, it probably would have succeeded. Park can play sinister and unglued better than just about any actor working today. In turn, Long can play sympathetic and terrified equally well. Why turn Park's character into simply a deranged caricature? Why make Long resolutely unsympathetic, then bury his wildly expressive face in a fat suit for half of the movie, relegating him to grunting and screaming? Why destroy what would have been a fantastic dynamic between these two actors with banal, tedious attempts at humour and melodrama?
Counterpoint to Park and Long's talents, we have the inexplicable performances of Rodriguez and Depp. Rodriguez's sobbing, melodramatic close-up scenes came across as insert-shots that had nothing to do with the narrative. They reminded me of Wayne Campbell's "Oscar Scene" in Wayne's World, when he's spritzing his face with water and faux-sobbing about never having learned to read. That scene was hilarious. So was this one, but unintentionally so. As for Depp, well, what can you say? It is a terrible, unfunny, aimless performance from an actor who is usually so good at these types of campy roles. To say his work in this falls flat is an understatement.
So, it would seem that Smith simply didn't realize that the concept alone of Tusk was just the right amount of comedy this film needed. By piling on the silly performances, tired Canadians-are-quirky jokes, and simply ridiculous flashback scenes, he turns what could have been a highly original and disturbing horror movie into a bad one. He even manages to make a bad comedy on top of that.
Horror and comedy can mix. Look at the original Evil Dead films, or the Kiwi gem, "Braindead" to see how it's done. Do not look to Tusk. It gets it wrong in just about every possible way.
