Although billed as a crime thriller from Belgium, Michael R. Roskam's Oscar-nominated feature debut is truly more of a character showcase for a deeply physical, lacerating performance by the hood-eyed, glowering Matthias Schoenaerts. Bringing the bruising physicality of a young Robert De Niro to his many wordless scenes, Schoenaerts practically gives Bullhead a reason to exist. Without his dour, amped-up presence, Roskam's underwritten yet overcomplicated film would hardly register.
Schoenaerts plays Jacky Vanmarsenille, a cattle farmer with a decidedly bleak outlook. A pre-credits narration lays out his worldview in succinct, brutal terms. Laid as it is against a backdrop of muddy fields and mist-shrouded trees (much of the film exists in this kind of wet gloom), Jacky's point of view sets the tone for a story that doesn't do much to disprove his point. Although ostensibly a law-abiding citizen, his decision at film's start to get into a deal with local crime boss Marc Decuyper (Sam Louwyck) who deals in illegal cattle-doping hormones doesn't seem like that much of a stretch for him. Indeed, with his manichean outlook, it seems surprising that a stunted plug of aggression like Jacky hasn't gotten into this kind of work before -- he was made to be somebody's heavy. Nevertheless, he seems uncomfortable with the crooks he's gotten involved with, given that one of them just murdered a policeman investigating the "hormone mafia."
There's something ready to explode inside Jacky, which is obvious long before we see him shooting up testosterone from a small hospital's worth of supply and shadow-boxing in his room. The match of his rage smolders like steam through much of Roskam's mostly dreary and overlong saga, which dips into the organized crime plot from time to time but is more interested in the roots of Jacky's problems. Not long after the introduction of Diederik (Joroen Perceval, weasley as his mustache would suggest), an associate of Marc's, Roskam inserts a flashback to a scene Diederik was present for 20 years ago that explains the grisly reason for Jacky's doping-up. Also lurking around Jacky's periphery is Lucia (Jeanne Dandoy), a girl from his past whom he now begins to follow in some kind of wordless fascination.
Bullhead has determination to spare, and an unswerving sense of belief in its story that is admirable in a first-time writer-director. The film is shrouded in dire depression, the few daytime scenes overcast by clouds. There are a lot of tense close-ups and people breathing heavily in dark, shrouded rooms. Like Roskam's repetitive script, the whole effect palls rapidly. The first hour of the film drifts by with a near total lack of dramatic momentum. However, when the plot begins to thicken later on - with the revelation of a police informant, in particular -- the film has wasted so much time that it becomes difficult to sustain interest. Roskam includes some playful elements, such as a few jokes at the expense of southern Belgian French-speaking Walloons (mocked by the primarily Dutch-speaking Flemish characters), but his intense focus on the brutish Jacky rarely wavers. The connection is hardly subtle, there are too many shots of penned-up cattle and a tensely pacing Jacky for it to go unnoticed. Unfortunately, a glower is not a story.
aka Rundskop
