Velvet Buzzsaw

Dan Gilroys newest picture, and most importantly second collaboration with the fantastic Jake Gyllenhaal, "Velvet Buzzsaw" is every much as unsatisfying and confused as it appears to be shiny and unique.

The satirical pieces, which take extremely long to set up, never work with the upcoming horror events - and the scenes of terror never seem to fully work under the context of the satirical bits. We're left with a movie that pretends to be clever, intellectual and satirical on art, but displays nothing but a lack of every aspect mentioned above. There are quite some parallels between this and Inarritus "Birdman" (2014), in which the movie is neither convincing nor impressing to justify the flashy and dazzling tone and sense of narrative. It misses substance, thought and precision to back up its ambition.

For the most part though, Gyllenhaal is great, as one would easily expect. And I can not fully degrade the supporting cast who don't seem to be doing anything terribly wrong. It's just as if all the characters have no real purpose besides their bizarre looks and the way they speak. No character has a serious arc, which is sad in this type of movie where it could have easily be portrayed throughout a leitmotif and theme of art. Everything just flows and flows into nearly two hours of badly paced dialogue, horror scenes and stylish art.

I must admit that some of the paintings and visual art looked really nice. The cinematography, and the editing (which was also done by director Gilroy) is not bad too. There is actually one shot that I remembered liking quite a bit. We are thrown into a family watching TV, until the camera moves top to reveal they are actually mannequins in a studio. The problem ultimately is that it's half style, no substance. The style does not tell its own story, neither do the characters. The plot is never explained and essentially only exists by coincidence and chance. "Velvet Buzzsaw" never feels forced, because it simply hasn't got any constitution for the premise. That's in a certain way even worse than feeling forced.

Netflix hit out another pretentious, unconvincing, flashy and "empty" movie, whose only saving graces are Jake Gyllenhaal and the editing.

4/10

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

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.

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.