Velvet Buzzsaw

Writer-director Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) re-teams with co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo on this uneven blend of art-world satire and supernatural horror. When a lowly art gallery worker (Zawe Ashton) discovers her upstairs neighbor dead, she also finds a horde of paintings that the reclusive tenant had been working on for years. Instead of destroying them as the deceased had wished, she steals them and brings them to her gallery boss (Russo), as well as to a highly-influential critic (Gyllenhaal), casuing an uproar in the art world and the declaration of a newly-discovered master. However, those in proximity of the dead man's works start experiencing hallucinations, and soon much, much worse.

The milieu of the high-end modern art world is ripe for skewering, and thus has been the target of derision in many books, shows, and films in the past. This film doesn't bring anything new to that tradition, merely highlighting the pretensions, backstabbing, and crass commercialism that even one as far removed from that world as myself has seen many times. The performances are appropriate for the material, with a few (Gyllenhaal, Collette) pitched to the back row for effect.

The horror aspects are also a bit old-hat, although they are handled professionally enough. They come perhaps a bit too few and far between for hardcore horror fans, though. There's a barely-contained streak of black humor throughout which undermines the more menacing tones of the fright stuff. It's also hard to get too concerned about the well-being of such an unlikable group of snobs, twits and sycophants.

Dan Gilroy reunites with Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo for his new Netflix cooperation VELVET BUZZSAW.

What saves this film, is the lead performance by Gyllenhaal, who plays art critic Morf Vandewalt and provides for lots of great quotes that had me grinning throughout the movie. In contrast to NIGHTCRAWLER's Louis Bloom though, his character here is written as a more naive and less calculating person.

Gilroy's new film definitely lacks the punch of NIGHTCRAWLER. While especially in the first half of the movie the execution of its core premise, exposing the hypocrisy of the artistic elite, ironically turns out to be mostly superficial, Gilroy basically plays with standard horror tropes in the second half. "No originality, no courage", Vandewalt would probably judge. Last year's THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT definitely had way more to say in that regard.

VELVET BUZZSAW is still a somewhat entertaining film from start to finish, even if it obviously struggles with its narrative at times and didn't turn out to be the masterpiece that NIGHTCRAWLER was.

After Nightcrawler Dan Gilroy is a figure that I will permanently be interested in. Then came along Roman J Israel which was a frustrating experience. There was a lot of good in it but it seemed to relish being slow and unnecessarily wordy. Now we have Velvet Buzzsaw. A movie so plain, I had absolutely no response to. There is barely enough here to be upset about and nearly nothing to be wowed by. It's just so...bland. You'd think Jake gyllenhaal would be the main character but he isn't. In fact, no one is. It's Totally confused, strangely muddled, and tonally messy. It was almost as if the film was passing through my head as soon as it went in.

While the first third of this movie isn't a perfect movie (or a great one) it is a decent look at the modern high art world and the vapid people who inhabit them. The characters are underdeveloped and the script underwritten, but it is somewhat gripping and you are ready to invest in these vain monsters.

The first "scare" comes at the halfway mark, and this is where the movie really goes downhill. Although the art in question is admittedly gorgeous and the premise seems intriguing, it just doesn't work. It's tedious and boring, neither working as a modern trashy jump scare flick or a more thought provoking atmosphere piece, and you are left running down the clock on this clunker.

The music is invasive, often intruding and standing out too much. The cuts are strange, cutting too fast and consequently using way too many cuts. The dialogue is pretty unnatural & feels overly theatrical.

Missed as anything but a pointed take down of the art world, and even then it's not great. Some memorable "horror" visuals, art pieces & turns (such as John Malkovich expectedly playing John Malkovich) are certainly present, but getting there might be a doozy.

4.5

The idea in the film is fantastic but didn't seem to dive deep enough into the story and lacks impact. With most of the characters being pretenious, I was overwhelmed with the use of metaphores and foreshadowing, it became expected throughout the film but doesn't hold enough significance. An origin film on Dease would seem more interesting to me after watching this film.