Actor and musician Vincent Gallo takes on the role of writer, director, editor, cinematographer, and star with his second filmmaking effort, The Brown Bunny. Motorcycle racer Bud Clay (Gallo) drives his van across the country in search of his lost love, Daisy (Chloë Sevigny). He stops at her parents' house and sees the brown bunny she left behind. Along the rest of the way, he stops for gas, rides his bike, and makes out with a woman at a roadside rest area (Cheryl Tiegs). He meets up with Daisy
when he finally arrives in Los Angeles, leading to the revelatory conclusion in his hotel room. The Brown Bunny premiered in competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival in a working cut of 119 minutes that was widely panned; a 93 minute final edit was shown at subsequent festivals and premiered in the United States in the summer of 2004. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
A passable, if often dreary, evocation of those '70s road movies in which disillusioned young men (and the occasional woman) took to the highway in search of America, the meaning of things or maybe just a hamburger.
What plays for 80 minutes like an intolerable, self-indulgent road trip largely redeems itself in the last 10 minutes, through a moving explanation of the anti-hero's catatonic depression.
When every other scene looks like a cola, jeans or motorcycle commercial -- perfectly unposed with hair proudly mussed -- Gallo's motivations seem too compromised.
Is it good? Not really. But as was the case with his Buffalo 66, Gallo once again shows himself to be a fascinating enigma and possibly his own worst enemy.
If this is a 'feature film,' then so are your old home movies, or videotapes from a convenience store's security camera. ... It's not just one scene; the whole movie blows.
Vincent Gallo's self-indulgent experiment that succeeds on some levels and fails on others. Controversial because of the "real" sex scenes, The Brown Bunny has limited mainstream appeal and a growing cult following.The problem here is that Gallo has about 30 minutes of good material and about 90 minutes of
screen time to fill. Characters take literally minutes to say two or three words. The end result is a film that's sometimes interesting and often excruciating.
January 11, 2009
Randy Tippy
Super Reviewer
Vincent Gallo's ego gets the better of him in this disappointing and self-indulgent follow up to the brilliant Buffalo 66. The direction is fine, as are most of the performances, I even liked the (albeit) predictable ending. I'm just not a huge Sevigny fan, both her and Gallo come across as quite arrogant, and as for
'that scene', put it away you dirty old man!
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