Friday, January 30, 2015

Tusk (2014)

“Tusk” cannot be unseen or flushed away. It deserves both. Pitched I suppose as a spoof on the “Human Centipede” flicks, once-talent Kevin Smith directs with the urgency of a fatty waving off farts as he sits alone on his watching bad TV. Justin Long plays a shock jock who gets kidnapped by a Canadian madman (Michael Parks) with a fetish for walruses. Yes, walruses. So, poor Long becomes a walrus. Yeah, Tusks in his mouth. Flippers. Funny mustache. Bodily morphed like the teens in “Centipede.” But it’s the audience eating shit here. Smith spoons it. Satirizing an OTT satire is a bad idea. Smith is all bad ideas. Halfway in, he drops in Johnny Depp as a redneck Canadian Inspector Clouseau hunting Parks’ psycho in a side plot that stops the film dead. Jokes about Canadian accents (!!) abound. (Are those still funny?) The tonal shift is so bewildering and Depp’s “performance” so wink-wink self-aware, it’s as if Smith is testing his most loyal fans’ patience: “Can you believe this shit!?!” Long gives his all. As a BFF, watch the lights go out in Haley Joel Osment’s eyes. Career panic. I can’t say Depp even cares. D-

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