The Brown Bunny (2003) Reviews

• Definitely an acquired taste

  btb-ii2006-12-05

  If you can endure a 90 minute portrait of brooding self loathing with virtually no dialog and uninspired cinematography, this film is for you. The notorious scene with Daisy is incongruous. Perhaps, I am dense, but in my view, the emperor has no clothes. To be successful, this film should have elicited a strong interest in the lead character. But in the end, you have learned little about someone who is shallow and unappealing. This film portrays the journey of a motorcyclist tormented by demons vaguely hinted at in mysterious stops he makes in route. You see that he is attracted and repulsed by women. (Cheryl Tiegs, for those of you old enough to remember her from the 1970s is perfect in what amounts to a cameo.) But his encounters with women are so fleeting and glancing that you learn little until the end of the journey. Then, what you learn is too trite to support your having endured the trip with him. I believe Vincent Gallo had a serious idea, but the idea is unrealized.

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• An experiment that fails

  wisewebwoman2007-03-18

  Yeah, I got it. It took a torturous 1-1/2 hours to get there but I was spared the 26 minutes more that others had to suffer through in the original cut. Strange camera angles of pumping gas, lying in hotel rooms,urinating, eating, driving, driving, driving. Crying, hugging women wordlessly. Driving Driving Driving. Yeah, the fellow is grieving a lost love with a flower's name, yeah, he's attracted to other women with flowers' names. Yeah he was sorta responsible for the loss of his love. B-b-b-b-ut we never know what that love was all about, was it as shallow as depicted here? You can't care about the main character, how can you. You know nothing of him. This is one of the most self-indulgent movies I've ever seen. With a money shot at the end. Avoid. 2 out of 10 for the Gordon Lightfoot song on the soundtrack.

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• Worked for me.

  Rogue-322004-08-30

  I saw Buffalo 66 long before I started posting reviews at imdb, so I haven't written about that film but I loved it, I give it a 10, and after seeing The Brown Bunny at the Nuart on Saturday evening, I am here to report that I give Gallo's second feature film the same rating. A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding this movie, or just not appreciating it, or perhaps both. There are many reasons for this, none of them valid in my estimation. The biggest protests, from what I've been reading, seem to be in the 'lack of plot' and 'vanity project' areas. I can understand how the film would be a little slow for a lot of people, since it's basically an internal study, with none of the 'usual' mainstream (or even indy film) tactics. And in fact that's what I loved the most about the movie - how Gallo has the artistic wherewithal to be true to HIS vision of what a film can be, to how a plot of a film (and there IS a plot) can be played out in a different, less recognizable way, which leads to one of the reasons I think people are calling this a vanity project (aside from the infamous scene toward the end -- which I have to say is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to the film, once you find out what's really going on with our sick puppy Bud Clay) : because the movie doesn't follow a 'typical' set-up, requiring a bit more patience on the part of the viewer, a lot of people feel more comfortable dismissing this unbelievably profound piece of work as a 'vanity project'. In reality, I believe the opposite is true: Gallo is giving his audience more credit than they perhaps deserve, in presenting such a stark, uncompromising character study. The fact that a lot of this audience chooses not to accept him on his terms does not diminish his power and the power of this movie. Can't wait for the next one, Vincent.

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• Narcissistic and pedant to the max...

  rainking_es2006-07-19

  In the late 90's Vincent Gallo made his debut behind the camera with "Buffalo 66" (he also wrote it and produced it). It was a bittersweet story about two losers that fall in love with each other. It was a kind and so tender. So, I was really looking forward to see Gallo's next project... and let me tell you: WHAT A DISAPPOINTING!! He's suffered sort of an involution: once he was totally honest and now he's totally narcissistic and pedantic. In his second film he shows us Vincent Gallo riding his motorbike, Vincent Gallo getting' a couple of Cokes from a drinks machine, Vincent Gallo crying because the world is too beautiful, Vinczzzzzzzzzzzzz..... There's no story, there's no script, there's nothing... Nothing to remark except what you all were expecting: that scene in which Chloe Sevigny gives a BJ to Vincent Gallo (of course). Well, Sevigny's skills for porno are improvable. Anyway, if you sit through "The brown bunny" just to watch that scene.. Well, you really need some love in your life!! *My rate: 2/10

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• The man loves a mirror...

  xande882007-09-21

  I see a lot of movies, and I've seen a lot o really bad ones. The worst of them is Oscar material if compared to this film. Never has a filmmaker been so self-indulgent, cool wanna-be, disgustingly megalomaniac, and completely oblivious to an audience -- an audience left to watch a total absence of creativity -- as in this ridiculous attempt at artistic depth and deeper meanings, supposedly hidden behind empty images and badly written lines. Terrible, unforgivable waste of precious celluloid. Watching a road through a dirty windshield for hours might seem a clever metaphorical statement if you're on crack, or are as delusional as the director, who probably thinks of himself as the greatest film-making entity that ever lived. Me? Well, those were 90 minutes of my life that I'll never have back and do something useful with -- although I wish I could. But the truth is that it doesn't matter if a thousand people told you how despicable this movie is -- this is a movie that MUST be seen, otherwise you won't believe someone actually had the bad taste and lack of everything else (including talent and judgment) to make it.

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