Buzzard

2014

Action / Comedy / Drama / Horror

6
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 61% · 45 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 61% · 500 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.3/10 10 2451 2.5K

power glove hotel nintendo bank spaghetti punk rock

Plot summary

Paranoia forces small-time scam artist Marty to flee his hometown and hide out in a dangerous Detroit. With nothing but a pocket full of bogus checks, his Power Glove, and a bad temper, the horror metal slacker lashes out.

Director

Joel Potrykus Photo
Joel Potrykus

Top cast

Lisa Mueller Photo
Lisa Mueller as Bank Teller
Michael Saunders Photo
Michael Saunders as Christopher / Mr. Skiba
Abi Obisesan Photo
Abi Obisesan as Doctor
Crystal Sparks Photo
Crystal Sparks as Maid
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
895.13 MB
1280*714
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 37 min
Seeds ...
1.62 GB
1920*1072
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 37 min
Seeds 7

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Armin_Nikkhah_Shirazi 6 / 10

Uncomfortable social comedy

BUZZARD follows Marty, a small-time criminal who tries to carry out various scams whenever he gets a chance. Shortly after he extends his activities to cashing other people's checks from the bank for which he works, he realizes that he is about to be caught. So he first goes into hiding in his nerdy work friend's basement, and then, as his paranoia about getting caught increases, travels to Detroit.This movie was well-received by critics. The top critic comment, giving this a perfect score, called it a "scathing indictment of capitalism". Except, it isn't.There certainly is social commentary here on how the capitalist system can turn people into drones dependent on the next meager paycheck, reduced to trading frivolous escapist entertainment for a higher sense of purpose, and even discharged of their empathy for less fortunate fellow human beings.And I can see why a movie critic would think that Marty's story is an indictment of capitalism: although he is a crook, he has at times a child-like naivete which is hard to believe, and which sets him up for many of this troubles. If we squint really hard, we could argue that the capitalist system exploits this naivete to take advantage of him.But the problem is that, as the character is drawn, his compromised ethics is not the result of being exploited by the capitalist system, but simply of him being a person with low ethical standards.Sure, there are scenes where he speaks to his mother and lies not for personal advantage but to make sure she does not worry about him, and on one call he even makes a point to request that she tell his siblings that he loves them. These scenes certainly humanize him, and nobody questions that he is capable of love, but it does not change that, as drawn in this movie, his character would still be a criminal in a more just society, one that did not try to take advantage of him at every turn. And that is what undermines the movie as an indictment of capitalism.It is instructive to compare BUZZARD to EMILY THE CRIMINAL (2022), a thematically very similar movie which is both better entertainment and a real "scathing indictment of capitalism": Emily's ethical standards are also lower than those of most people, but she hangs on to a fundamental sense of fairness that Marty simply lacks.Only when this sense of fairness is violated by the Kafkaesque obstacles erected in her way by the capitalist system does she resort to crime. It really makes a huge difference in how we contextualize her situation compared to his. And I think that is exactly how it should be, because there has to be a point at which blaming the system becomes merely an abdication of personal responsibility.The various ways by which Marty carries out his many small scams are amusing, as are various sequences of silly games he and his friend invent and play. His portrayal as a small-time crook seems naturalistic to me and may be interesting as character study. But Marty's lack of a fundamental sense of fairness made it hard for me to relate to him, and it negatively affected my enjoyment of the movie.There is a tonal shift toward the dark when the movie goes into the third act and Marty goes to Detroit, but it didn't feel that pronounced to me because the purportedly more lighthearted earlier acts already felt uncomfortable.The movie ends on a note of irony and takes a small surrealist turn, but I could not do much with that. This is not the kind of comedy I would normally watch for entertainment.
Reviewed by wildblueyonder 6 / 10

Entertaining, but disappointing

I did enjoy the movie but I did leave it feeling irritated. I'm not sure the point of building up to all that drama just to end the movie like that - its pretty lousy.What you have is a completely socially ambivalent human who has and seeks no purpose and the movie seems to go to great lengths to make us, the audience, root for the kid but then he starts to devolve into ... well what?I'm not one to feel that a film needs to wrap everything up in a nice bow for you but in this case I left with questions that nullify a lot of my enjoyment of the movie. Obviously the kid has issues but he kills a guy - is it full blown mental illness or is he just self-involved to the Nth degree?And what is the deal with a 3.5 minute scene of a guy eating spaghetti? Is he that bored? Is he going mad?I just felt the movie could have capatilized better on all the tension it built and instead it just sorta ended, I thought it was a shame.
Read more IMDb reviews

1 Comments

Be the first to leave a comment