Rating: 
Summary: Please don't make us wait 8 years for your next film, George
Review: "Bruiser" begins very well, yet in the last half hour dwindled somewhat into a more routine formula. Nonetheless, it still had me enthrawled- Romero's perfect pacing, framing and editing is as bold as ever. Also the subdued/over-the-top use of music impressed me greatly. His recurring theme of what makes a person who they are is revived- a similar theme being found in earlier films "The Dark Half" and "Martin". Yet, I must say I was miss-led. I think this films advertising campaign is completely wrong for the movies content. From the front cover I was expecting just another slasher film- and this does not do this film justice. If it hadn't been for the words "A George Romero film" I would have skipped this movie and grabbed another off the shelf. Bruiser is everything you wouldn't expect and in many ways reaches into a very David Lynchian vein- although Lynch did this better in his "Lost Highway." But I still had a ripsnorting time with this feast... It has a different atmosphere and flavour to Romero's earlier work, but his macabre sense of humour prevails. There are times I was unsure of whether to laugh or cringe- this being Romero's truly horrific trademark (it was perfected in Dawn of the Dead). If only the high sense of tension and frustration could have been held ... the film has a dissapointing and un-convincing ending. But it is with high hopes that I await for Romero's adaptation of Stephen Kings "The Girl who loved Tom Gordon" - if there ever was an example of perfect director to suit perfect material- it was this. Bruiser is a film that SHOULD be seen on DVD- the VHS transfer (in Australia anyway) is really terrible. This film is interesting, intreauging and very un-conventional. George A. Romero is a very tallented man , but lets all be honest- aren't we all hoping his next will be truly terrifying? Bruiser hits us on an intellectual level, but I still cannot help wanting to be hit in the face with a bucket of blood, intestines and brains. Mr. Romero, please come out of your shell and make us ... digest ... in our pants. Just like old times.
Rating:
Summary: a little odd, but great
Review: "Bruiser" is probably the best horror-drama I have seen in a long time. It is a revenge fantasy. A man who no one really notices one day wakes up with a plane white Michael Myers-like mask for a face. He has no identity now, and is free to take vengence from his cheating sex crazed wife, his egocentric boss (also his wifes lover), his best friend who is stealing money from him, and his a theif of a maid (who comes out of no-where). It is not a slasher flick, because we identify with the hero so thoughly (I use that term correctly). He is a sweet man who just dose not strong enough to stand up for himself, and everyone walks all over him. But when his face is gone he finds allies in a co-worker who knows how to keep a secret and his boss's wife (who I think are quietly in love with each other). The relationship between these nice people starkly contrast the people the hero thought were his real friends, because they helped him when it really counted, with out reserve or personal gain. The film was written and directed by George Remero ("Night of the Living Dead"), and has explored the theme of identity before with his fair adaptation of Stephen King's book "The Dark Half", but this film is smaller, a little quieter (indeed the trademark Remero over the top gore is kept to a bare minimum), but it works because our hero is a small man like most of us, people who have gotten lost in the shuffle, and can relate to that. There is one small weakness, and that's the police. With murders going on, yes they are going to be involved; but these two are near useless. The climax in the rave like masqurade party at the end was brilliant, in a "Phantom of the Opera" kind of way. I recomend this movie to anyone who enjoys a good psychological thriller art movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Romero has officially lost it...
Review: "Bruiser" begins as the tale of a doormat husband who's a slave to his job and wife, whose only refuge from going insane comes in the form of violent fantasies. Well, one day he wakes up with a kabuki mask glued to his face, becomes a metaphorical 'invisible man' and goes on a killing spree, and by now you should know where you stand on this film. There are no zombies, none of the malevolence or social commentary that punctuated Romero's past films, and, maybe most appallingly, nothing ORIGINAL about "Bruiser" (save for the strong production values and expert direction). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the parallels between this and "The Crow," another film that had nothing original to say but was immortalized all the same. As the masked revenger, Jason Flemyng is just too nice, even when he's picking off his enemies; the always-charismatic oddball Peter Stormare is wasted in a one-note performance as a sexist magazine editor, his presence reduced to yammering lines like a loon."Bruiser" is just a weak film. Unearth Romero's zombie films and forget about this one.
Rating:
Summary: Please don't make us wait 8 years for your next film, George
Review: "Bruiser" begins very well, yet in the last half hour dwindled somewhat into a more routine formula. Nonetheless, it still had me enthrawled- Romero's perfect pacing, framing and editing is as bold as ever. Also the subdued/over-the-top use of music impressed me greatly. His recurring theme of what makes a person who they are is revived- a similar theme being found in earlier films "The Dark Half" and "Martin". Yet, I must say I was miss-led. I think this films advertising campaign is completely wrong for the movies content. From the front cover I was expecting just another slasher film- and this does not do this film justice. If it hadn't been for the words "A George Romero film" I would have skipped this movie and grabbed another off the shelf. Bruiser is everything you wouldn't expect and in many ways reaches into a very David Lynchian vein- although Lynch did this better in his "Lost Highway." But I still had a ripsnorting time with this feast... It has a different atmosphere and flavour to Romero's earlier work, but his macabre sense of humour prevails. There are times I was unsure of whether to laugh or cringe- this being Romero's truly horrific trademark (it was perfected in Dawn of the Dead). If only the high sense of tension and frustration could have been held ... the film has a dissapointing and un-convincing ending. But it is with high hopes that I await for Romero's adaptation of Stephen Kings "The Girl who loved Tom Gordon" - if there ever was an example of perfect director to suit perfect material- it was this. Bruiser is a film that SHOULD be seen on DVD- the VHS transfer (in Australia anyway) is really terrible. This film is interesting, intreauging and very un-conventional. George A. Romero is a very tallented man , but lets all be honest- aren't we all hoping his next will be truly terrifying? Bruiser hits us on an intellectual level, but I still cannot help wanting to be hit in the face with a bucket of blood, intestines and brains. Mr. Romero, please come out of your shell and make us ... digest ... in our pants. Just like old times.
Rating:
Summary: Almost But Not Quite Great
Review: After a long hiatus, George Romero returns with a startling and innovative film that's not so much a horror film but a character study of a victimized magazine executive with no sense of identity......who suddenly finds himself literally without an identity, as he wakes up one morning to find his face replaced by a blank white mask. The premise is strong, the actors are all terrific, and there are a handful of classic Romero scenes that emphasize his humorous and satrical side rather that his flesh-eating side, but the script has a not-quite-finished flavor that keeps the film from being satisfying. Instead of focusing on the main characters, we have a pretty useless subplot involving the police that adds nothing to the film, and the Halloween party climax is badly edited and disappointing. A good film, but not a great one. If you forget about flesh-eating zombies and pay attention to Romero's scathing, cynical attacks on consumer culture and the loss of identity in the modern world, then you will find this film worth a viewing.
Rating:
Summary: ROMERO RETURNS!!! A Kinder, Gentler Romero...
Review: After eight years, Romero returns. This movie, was of course, NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING. Not from George... However, I enjoyed the movie as it is a odd mix of Kafka's The Metamorphosis meets Joel Schumacher's Falling Down with Michael Douglas. Poor, meek, downtrodden Henry Creedlow finally wakes up & realizes that human beings are treating him like crap. He has hallucinations during these bad times about doing the things, and bad things they are, to the whole, insensitive human race. Henry is getting screwed by life & he ain't gonna take it anymore! He wife is screwing his megalomaniac & sexually charged boss, his best friend in the world is screwing Henry, GEEZ, does this guy get a break? Even the hired help is screwing poor Henry, strangers on the street are rude & the yippy pampered family poodle treats him with contempt! Until... Henry gets some HUGE cojones, with the aid of a white mask replacing his face. Thus, making him the ultimate in an anonymous killers. Speaking of killers... There is an excellent soundtrack and appearance by The Misfits in an ultimate, hedonistic head banging, party scene. This isn't REALLY a horror movie, per se. It is a quietly crafted and sophisticated revenge of the downtrodden picture that I really and truly enjoyed! Happy Watching!
Rating:
Summary: ROMERO RETURNS!!! A Kinder, Gentler Romero...
Review: After eight years, Romero returns. This movie, was of course, NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING. Not from George... However, I enjoyed the movie as it is a odd mix of Kafka's The Metamorphosis meets Joel Schumacher's Falling Down with Michael Douglas. Poor, meek, downtrodden Henry Creedlow finally wakes up & realizes that human beings are treating him like crap. He has hallucinations during these bad times about doing the things, and bad things they are, to the whole, insensitive human race. Henry is getting screwed by life & he ain't gonna take it anymore! He wife is screwing his megalomaniac & sexually charged boss, his best friend in the world is screwing Henry, GEEZ, does this guy get a break? Even the hired help is screwing poor Henry, strangers on the street are rude & the yippy pampered family poodle treats him with contempt! Until... Henry gets some HUGE cojones, with the aid of a white mask replacing his face. Thus, making him the ultimate in an anonymous killers. Speaking of killers... There is an excellent soundtrack and appearance by The Misfits in an ultimate, hedonistic head banging, party scene. This isn't REALLY a horror movie, per se. It is a quietly crafted and sophisticated revenge of the downtrodden picture that I really and truly enjoyed! Happy Watching!
Rating:
Summary: He's [back]
Review: Bruiser (George Romero, 2000) George Romero and the Hollywood mainstream have been making moves towards compromise for almost thirty years now. Romero's been getting less graphic in relation to the rest of the world, and the rest of the world has been getting more graphic in relation to him. Because of this, it should be no surprise to anyone that some of the purists (actually, quite a few of them) have labelled Romero a sellout or worse, leading to the commercial failures of Monkey Shines (a fine movie) and The Dark Half (a not so fine movie), and Romero's subsequent self-removal from the film world for seven long years. He returns with Bruiser, a film which never received theatrical distro in the United States. Thankfully, someone at Lion's Gate had the sense to at least put the VHS and DVD out over here in preparation for Romero's first bonafide blockbuster, an adaptation of King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon due out in 2002. Bruiser is another slice of Romero's favorite pie-- an examination of the role of the outcast in a satirized version of society. Twenty years ago, Romero enjoyed forcing his point home with buckets of gore, but he's grown up a little these days and gone out on a limb. Bruiser is, for the most part, gore-free, leaving us to ask ourselves whether Romero's filmmaking style alone is enough to make Bruiser as relevant as Knightriders, as savage as Dawn of the Dead, and/or as heartbreaking as Martin. My answer, after a few days of reflection, is a qualified yes. I say "qualified" because, while the subject matter is unmistakably Romero, the style of direction here is just as unquestionably Argento. This is a giallo film without the violence and with more of a backing story; Romero has replaced the gore with Argento's operatic, sweeping style of filmmaking. So the gimmick hasn't disappeared as much as it has changed. In the new episode of Pie a la George, Everyman, known here as Henry Creedlow (Jason Flemyng, late of _From Hell_ and every Guy Ritchie film ever made), wakes up one morning and realizes two things: a. he's losing it, and b. he may have never had it in the first place. Henry Creedlow's first morning as these revelations come to him is filled with fantasties of violent things he'd like to do to himself and others (cf. Jennifer Connelly's forking of Sean Gullette in Requiem for a Dream last year). While this is happening, he comes to realize that no one he knows actually thinks about him in anything more than a surface way, including his boss Miles (Peter Stormare, of Chocolat, 8MM, Playing God, et [many] al.), his wife Janine (Nina Garbiras, recently of the short-lived TV series "The $treet," who bears more than a passing resemblance to the "dream girl" in Argento's Tenebre), and his high school chum/stockbroker James (Andrew Tarbet, known for The Famous Jett Jackson... heh). The two revelations eventually coalesce to turn Henry into something of a nasty bent-on-being-noticed sociopath. Many reviews of the film seem to be panning it for relative lack of acting skills; I didn't see it that way at all. Some characters come off as artificial, but they're supposed to be, a la Argento or (as an even better example) Joe Mantegna in Mamet's House of Games. It's all part of the satire. this isn't, thankfully, society as we know it; just as the shopping mall zombies of Dawn of the Dead were American consumer culture, the shallow husks we are handed here are Hollywood power-structure culture. They're no less mindless for not being caked with blue makeup and covered with the blood of their recent meals. Bruiser is definitely worth a look, especially if seven years of Romerolessness have had you climbing the walls. While its lack of groundbreaking psyche-related revelations don't put it in the same class as Dawn of the Dead or Martin, it's good, solid filmmaking. *** 1/2 (one other note I couldn't pass up. Having The Misfits in the movie without Glenn Danzig is kind of like putting Sammy Hagar in front of the E Street Band and selling it as a Springsteen show. The new vocalist has a better voice than Glenn Danzig ever dreamt of, but... jeez, it's the MISFITS, you know?)
Rating: 
Summary: Very strange but surprisingly good.
Review: Bruiser is a film that many will pass over. In fact on the box it is obviously trying to lure either Horror fanatics or people into weird movies. Bruiser is a weird movie and I expected nothing less from George Romero. Bruiser is about a man who works for an overbearing sexed up boss (who in the beggining flashes his staff) has an unfaithful wife, and best bud who steals thousands of dollars from him. All this stress, and the fact that he is a nice guy eventually takes it's toll as his face is literally erased. He became nothing, a no body. At this point he tries to regain his identity by taking out those wh wronged him. Despite the premise that it turns into a typical psycho or slasher flick he only targets three people, those who wronged him. The cops can't trace him, because he has no face. OVerall this is weird movie, but one that should be looked at, if you are into weird quirky movies.
Rating: 
Summary: A fiend without a face. A movie without the chills.
Review: Bruiser, written and directed by George A. Romero, legendary horror creator of one of the scariest movies of all time, Night Of the Living Dead, tells a sort of flat tale of what happens when an unassuming mouse of a man wakes one day to find he has lost his face, only to be replaced with a white, featureless mask. The title refers to a fashion magazine where the lead character works. Henry Creedlow (Jason Flemyng) is your typical 'nice' guy who struggles with many aspects of his life. His wife has absolutely no respect for him, claiming he's a loser and going nowhere, while engaging in an affair with Henry's boss (Peter Stormere) who verbally abuses Henry every chance he gets. Not only that, but Henry's best friend and financial advisor has been stealing from Henry, causing Henry to go deep into debt in his efforts to try and create a lavish house only to satisfy his wife. Henry's world is a bleak one, fleshed out with revenge fantasies and the occasional thoughts of suicide. Then, one day, Henry wakes up to find his face is gone. In its' place is a white, featureless mask which empowers Henry to take matters into his own hands, righting the wrongs, dealing with those, in a rather bloody fashion, who've taken from Henry for so long. Given this movie was written and directed by George Romero, I was, as probably many others, expecting more than what we got. There were brief moments of visceral violence, but not nearly as much as I would have expected. I never really felt a sense of suspense as the faceless terror stalked his victims. The kinder, gentler horror of George Romero I suppose. The makeup to create the 'new' Henry certainly looked spooky, but the meandering of the plot squashed any possibilities of chills and thrills out of the movie for me. And given the fact that there were no likeable characters in the movie, there was no real fondness ever developed, no attachments made, and thus, not much interest when various characters met their fate. Even the character of Henry never provided any bonding to the audience, as first he is this meek, little man we may feel sorry for, but sympathy is far from liking, and then he turns into this brutal, remorseless killer finally dealing with matters that could he himself let deteriorate to the point they did. The movie on this disc is presented in wide screen format, and special features include a trailer for this movie and a couple other Lion's Gate releases, production commentary, and a Misfits' music video, as the band, in its' form current to the time, makes an appearance in the movie. Bruiser had much potential, but lacked the bite I was really looking for...Romero fans will probably be disappointed if they are looking for something along the lines of his other releases like NOTLD, The Crazies, or Martin. While those movies definitely reside out of the mainstream, this one plops itself right in the center of it, and suffers.
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