Customer Reviews

Buddy Boy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Aidan Gillen, Susan Tyrrell from Warhol's "Bad", and Roman Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner give award-worthy performances in this dark, bizarre, and even quite funny psychological thriller. When I first saw this film on IFC years ago I immediately called IFC the next day and asked how to obtain a copy. I was instructed it was only available from Japan. So I bought a region-free DVD player and bought the DVD from Japan and it was worth every dime. Now I'm looking forward to the special features in this US release. Definitely worthy of its place in film history along side Polanski and Lynch. Definitely worthy of it's place on your DVD rack. This is a MUST see... Well, for those who can handle it!

This is one of those films that reminds you that there is still creative filmmakers and those willing to go out on a limb. The first time I saw Buddy Boy I was relived to have a breath of fresh air in the stale world of indie films. Great cast, interesting script, and great jokes about vegetarians. When is Mark Hanlon going to direct another film??

Buddy Boy is a good movie. I have just seen it for the first time after a long wait. I bought this movie because there were many references to David Lynch works, and I have to admit it's quite obvious. But it not a bad thing. Hanlon is clearly not as talented as Lynch, but still, the plot is quite good. The ending tho, is just plain confusion.

If you like strange movies you'll probably like this one.

There's much not to like about this movie, true. Unlike a previous viewer, I would never recommend Eraserhead. I'm glad I saw it, but being able to say I saw it is the only thing I've taken from that movie. The tone and general vibe in Buddy Boy does resemble Eraserhead somewhat, but this movie is more watchable and more enjoyable. It's still quite weird, but the weirdness is palatable in a way that it wasn't in Eraserhead.

The pacing of this movie, like similarly-themed movies from the compared directors Lynch and Polanski, is slow. As such, the movie must rely on its mystery and the way it gradually unravels. It must use the slow pacing to its advantage, so to speak, and on this front it does a pretty good job. It's a movie of quiet, soft-spoken dialogue and very minimal action. So as you're leaning in to hear the dialogue, you find yourself falling into the story.

When the male lead observes his vegetarian girlfriend scarfing down a huge, half-raw steak in the middle of the night, that's the only hook this movie needs. Now you simply must find out what's going on. Did she lie when she told him she doesn't eat meat? Is he imagining seeing something that's not really happening? Does she have a meat-eating twin sister? The answer isn't nearly as interesting as the mystery, but the ending is just ambiguous enough to prove satisfying. Along the way, you may occasionally get a tad bored, have your head spin at the improbability of a hotty like Seignor falling for a sleeper of a loser like Gillen's character, or just get weirded out, but stick with it. In the end, there's just enough reward to make it worth the ride.

Mark Hanlon's debut film "Buddy Boy", starring Aidan Gillen The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season Blackout is a sick little diamond which stands out very distinctly from the thousands of movies produced by independent filmmakers who have watched "Mulholland Drive" one too many times.

The protagonist--if you really want to be nice and call him that--is Francis, a mentally ill young man with obvious dental problems and even more obvious mental issues. Gillen plays Francis perfectly: a sensitive, nice guy who struggles with a medieval form of the Roman Catholic faith (somehow I'm not surprised that the faith is given a smarmy, ironic treatment in this kind of movie) and tries to make sense of his tragic life. He lives with a crippled, vicious stepmother played brilliantly by Susan Tyrrell and endures her fat, obnoxious, disgusting friends and their insults towards him. The film's unrelentingly bleak and doomy atmosphere reminds one very much of Requiem for a Dream (Director's Cut) and if you've seen that movie, expect something similar with a hallucinatory psychological twist.

Francis spends most of his time working at a comic book store, where he is virtually ignored, and peeping out his windows at neighbors. One of these is the beautiful actress Emmanuelle Segnier (Roman Polanski's wife) as Francis' vegan/intellectual lite neighbor Gloria who as a result of one kind act on Francis part, pursues him and wants more than anything else to get to know him. Francis is suspicious of her motives and has trouble believing anyone would want to get to know him, particularly a gorgeous woman like this--so did I--and this probably has something to do with what he sees in his binoculars when he peeps at her. A relationship develops, but mistrust on Francis' part grows and grows as a result of...well, Francis has problems.

On the whole, this is a slam dunk in terms of surrealism, character development, mood and practically everything else. On the other hand, one can't help but wonder why Hanlon has us grasping at Francis' background so desperately. We know that his father was also borderline insane and may have harmed his real mother, but why and when? Also, who exactly IS Gloria? Are we actually expected to believe that this lady hangs around after Francis pulls a cleaver out at one of her dinner parties? Berates her about being a vegetarian (hilarious scenes, some of these.) Then is patient with him as he draws a pistol on her? In The Ninth Gate Segnier was used in much the same way, only with a much different character. She was Satan. In this film, is she God? That would make the most sense to me, considering the ending. Also, it borrows a little too much from The Tenant which is not a bad thing the first few times, but gets a little derivative in parts. On the whole, though, this is a great movie from a promising new director.

Buddy Boy is a crazy little indie film with a lot of surprises at the end. From spying to lies, this movie has it all. The only bad thing is that the ending is confusing as heck, and I still dont understand it. An interesting and inventive movie. Better than most of what Hollywood puts out.

Not for every taste, but a satisfying film that features wonderful performances by Aidan Gillen (from british Queer as Folk), Emmanuelle Seigner, and the brilliant Susan Tyrrell (Fat City, Forbidden Zone, Cry Baby, etc).