BUSHWICK. (2017) DIRECTED BY JONATHAN MILOTT AND CARY MURNION. MUSIC BY AESOP ROCK. STARRING DAVE BAUTISTA AND BRITTANY SNOW.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
'Who the f**k wants to go to Hoboken...?'
Who, indeed? I certainly never heard of it before this film, haha. I thoroughly enjoyed BUSHWICK even though I wasn't expecting to. I don't cotton much to thrillers normally but this one was actually genuinely thrilling, which makes a nice change. What happens in it is basically this.
A pretty blonde New Yorker called Lucy has just taken a perfectly innocuous subway ride with her boyfriend Jose. When they emerge from the subway, chatting away excitedly as young couples do who have yet to experience the grinding irritation of being glued together for years by kids and mortgages, they discover something a little out of the ordinary.
Apparently, World War Three has just broken out above ground. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm constantly expecting to see when I emerge from Tesco or the Post Office of an afternoon, especially now that the chubby fella from North Korea seems hell-bent on proving to the orangey-lookin' fella in the Whitehouse that his warhead is bigger and more, ahem, tumescent than anything the orangey-lookin' fella can come up with.
If we're all on borrowed time here, then I would like to register a mild protest that my last days are to be spent in Tesco or the Post Office and not on a paradise island somewhere with an army of Cristiano Ronaldo-lookalikes, all scantily-clad and thoroughly oiled up for my personal delectation. What? No-one cares about my problems? Fine. We'll move on...
Lucy, dressed in a red coat, has got to make it across town alone to her Grandma's house. Firstly, Little Red Riding Hood much? And secondly, she's alone now because, no matter what curveballs life throws at you, your boyfriend will always let you down. Jose is hit directly in the kisser with one of these self-same curveballs and that's the end of him. That's not a spoiler, it happens at the very beginning of the film and not the end, so there...!
Lucy somehow finds herself in someone else's house, in a situation where it looks like she might be about to get raped by a coupla trash-talking black guys. That might have been an interesting little diversion but the film-makers decide to go down the road of having Lucy saved from dishonour and suchlike by the owner of the house instead, an ex-marine called Stupe.
Stupe is one hell of a tough mutha-f***a. The size of a giant bear with a beard to match, he's the kinda guy you want on your side in the event of a zombie or just common or garden apocalypse. Big, tall, strong, resourceful, army background and training and his own little arsenal of weapons into the bargain. Lovely jubbly.
Played by Dave Bautista from something called GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (I'm aware of its existence but haven't actually seen it), Stupe talks in such a gruff, husky whisper of a voice that I literally couldn't make out a word he said. Instead, I pieced together his background from Lucy's reactions to what he was mumbling.
Stupe has a troubled past and has some stuff to work out. Where do I sign up??? Attempting to 'save' troubled guys with dodgy pasts and terrible communication skills is the reason I get out of bed in the morning, haha. If they're battling the demon drink or a sex addiction as well, well, I feel like I'm home, somehow. Seemingly, only damaged goods need apply.
'Is this 9-11 all over again?' Lucy asks Stupe, referring to the guys with the machine-guns, dressed from head-to-toe in black uniforms, who are killing willy-nilly everyone they see on the streets. 'Are these terrorists?' Stupe mumbles back: 'It's not an attack. This is an invasion.' Sounds ominous. But you guys don't even know the half of it...
Stupe and Lucy team up to cross the city and reach the safety zone or demilitarised zone,
where the US Army are apparently evacuating non-combatants or civilians by means of helicopters. Well, if it works out, fine, but Stupe and Lucy have a long way to go before they see those friendly old propellors whirring happily away.
New York is under attack. No, sorry, according to Stupe, it's being invaded, which I guess is just as scary. (It sounds less scary to me, somehow!) It's being invaded and getting home tonight is going to take a little longer than usual. If you get there at all...
No sex in the film, really, although no review would be complete without a shout-out to the 'happy pussy' on offer to Big Stupe from Lucy's drugged-up sister, Belinda. One wonders how he would have reacted had they not been interrupted by a possible terrorist bursting into the flat so rudely.
No sex in the film, really, although no review would be complete without a shout-out to the 'happy pussy' on offer to Big Stupe from Lucy's drugged-up sister, Belinda. One wonders how he would have reacted had they not been interrupted by a possible terrorist bursting into the flat so rudely.
You know what? I bet he would have turned it down. She ain't no classy lassy no-how. He and Lucy would be a much better match when it comes to re-populating the earth after the apocalypse. It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it, right?
Great film, great disaster effects and a terrific score by rapper and producer Aesop Rock. If I were you I'd try my hardest to catch this one. While you still can, I mean. We should make the most of civilisation as we know it before the zombie apocalypse begins in earnest. I'm squirrelling away cans of cock-a-leekie soup in the cupboard under-the-stairs just in case. If you've got croutons, then it's all back to mine for a knees-up when those sirens go off...
RELEASES THIS FRIDAY 25TH AUGUST 2017 IN SELECT CINEMAS
& ON EST & TVOD 28TH AUGUST 2017
(In conjunction with KALEIDOSCOPE ENTERTAINMENT)
Talent:
Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy, Spectre)
Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect 1-3, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend)
Christian Navarro (Vinyl, Rosewood)
Nick Damici (writer, Cold in July, Stakeland 1 and 2)
Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott (Directors, Cooties)
Nate Bolotin (producer, The Raid, The Raid 2)
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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