Film Review: Velvet Buzzsaw

"You Ever Notice Anything About This Painting? If You Look At It Long Enough, It Moves..."

Ever since Jake Gyllenhaal (Nocturnal Animals) and Dan Gilroy combined back in 2014 to create one of the most compelling and cinematic contemporary thrillers in the form of Nightcrawler, the knowledge that both would reunite once again upon the Netflix format seemed apt considering the streaming company's pedigree for allowing particular directors to drop their hands into an endless pot of money and do pretty much whatever they want in return for complete release rights. Moving away from the world of drama for the time being after the middling success of last year's Roman J. Israel, Esq., Gilroy's latest in the form of Velvet Buzzsaw sees the American go full on B-Movie silliness which just happens to have a top of the line A-star cast. Led once again by the enviable talents of Gyllenhaal, Gilroy's latest sees the American as a dedicated, if slightly exaggerated, art critic, who after the discovery of a never before seen body of work by a deceased, isolated hermit by the name of Ventril Dease, soon becomes obsessed with the idea that his paintings are somehow responsible for a strange series of accident related deaths and sudden unexplained disappearances. 

With the likes of Nightcrawler managing to balance just right the tonal balance between jet black comedy and full on dramatic seriousness, Velvet Buzzsaw suffers primarily from never really managing to settle on such a healthy synchronisation, with Gilroy's latest not ripe enough to to be placed in the realm of full on, exploitation greatness, with an element of horror which never at all comes across as either faintly scary or tense, and likewise, never really manages to grasp a serious approach either, resulting in a strange blend of the stylish perfection of something like Nocturnal Animals and the goofiness of Ghostbusters, just without managing to secure the sheer brilliance of either. With an underlying notion riding through the screenplay regarding a seemingly personal led attack stemmed from the mind of Gilroy and his personal feelings regarding either the shallowness of the art world or the uptight nature of criticism in any shape or form, Velvet Buzzsaw almost seems too shy to fully explore its' genre conventions, with the camera always peering away from death scenes and victims of murder, resulting in an underlying feeling that maybe the editor just felt a bit too twitchy showing the likes of Gyllenhaal come face to face with his inevitable fate. Whilst it is always entertaining to witness top level actors completely take to the silliness of a screenplay like Gilroy's with open arms and complete dedication, it comes as a slight shame that pretty much every single leading character within the drama is ultimately an absolute stinking moron with ponciness to burn, and whilst Velvet Buzzsaw doesn't even scratch the surface of the best that Gilroy can offer, Netflix's latest big name capture is silly, messy fun but not in any way memorable.  

Overall Score: 6/10