***THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS***
Let’s do some math. View Askew + clown = funny, right? Not really.
Vulgar is the story of Will (Brian O’Halloran), who is having a rough time of it in life. He lives in a crappy house, has a crappy car. His neighbors throw bottles at him. He is a clown for hire named Flappy, that makes birthday party appearances. While this is not paying very well (or sometimes at all) he loves it. His mother also lives in a rest home, which is yet another bill that he has to foot. Needing money badly, he comes up with an idea. In addition to being Flappy, the birthday party clown, he will become Vulgar, the bachelor party clown. An idea that would have immediately come to anyone’s mind, he will dress up as a clown, but wear lingerie. As a gag, he will come in to a bachelor party, tricking the groom-to-be in to thinking a gay clown stripper was hired instead of a whorish woman stripper. Obviously hilarity would ensue as all of the party guests would be in on this, and then a whorish stripper would really come in and the planned debauchery would go on. Unfortunately, his first gig does not go as planned and he is sexually assaulted by a man and his 2 adult sons, and the incident is video taped.
The story of this film is rather unique and interesting. However, it is almost unbearable in some scenes to watch, but not because of the depravity. Brian O’Halloran is just not a good actor. He really tries, and sometimes, he does deliver a good line, but he just really sucks. I am all for movies that don’t require decent acting, and this is certainly one of them, but he can’t pull it off. And I will tell you another thing, the scenes with him and the film’s writer/director Bryan Johnson are painful. In one of them, they are spouting off out of place faux clever dialogue back and forth like they’re reading lines off the walls behind each other. Thankfully, that Mallrats-esque banter is only in one or two scenes, but the poor acting continues throughout. Jerry Lewkowitz, who plays Ed, the father and sexual deviant, gives a fairly decent performance. One problem with his scenes however, is that most of them are with his two sons, who are idiots, and the scenes take a somewhat comical tone. While this may take the edge off a scene where 3 guys are raping a clown, it also kind of makes it less realistic. I would blame that on the way the two sons were written, and not on Lewkowitz’s performance. The film was also directed fairly well, if you’ll excuse a scene were a dead man is obviously breathing. And, again, ignoring some bad dialogue, the script is not bad either. It isn’t a bad little film, but in the Viewaskewniverse, it is near the bottom.
I would not mind seeing a second attempt at this movie, just with some recasting. This film barely had a budget, was written in less than a month, and shot in less time than it was written. Now that there is a lot more money in these people’s bank accounts, I would like to see what could be done with this story to make it better on film. Interesting bit of trivia: Vulgar is the clown logo of View Askew.
Comments
Post a Comment