Velvet Buzzsaw Never Cuts Bone [Review]

Dan Gilroy’s satirical horror film can’t do much but scratch the surface of greatness, despite an impressive cast and inventive premise.

Director/Writer: Dan Gilroy

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Toni Collette, John Malkovich, Zawe Ashton, Tom Sturridge, Natalia Dyer, Daveed Diggs, Billy Magnussen

Runtime: 113 min.

Rated: R for violence, language, some sexuality/nudity and brief drug use.

The last time Dan Gilroy, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Rene Russo collaborated, it resulted in 2014’s brilliant Nightcrawler, a chilling look at the lengths one will go to achieve “success.” It was easily one of the best films of the year, and an exciting debut for writer/director Gilroy. Unfortunately, his second feature, Roman J. Israel, Esq., was largely dismissed by critics, something evident in his third feature, Velvet Buzzsaw.

Set in the modern art world and populated with greedy, pretentious dealers, critics, and collectors, Buzzsaw revolves around the paintings of the recently deceased Ventril Dease. Dease is (was) a troubled man with a violent past and a myriad of mental issues. Against his wishes, a young and hungry agent Josephine (Ashton) saves his paintings from being destroyed and sells them with the help of pious art critic Morf (Gyllenhaal) and greedy gallery owner Rhodora (Russo).

That’s the setup, along with the introductions of a large roster of supporting players, caricatures played with pizzazz by an equally large roster of character actors. Gilroy takes a lot of time putting his pieces in their places before he truly starts to play with them. As a result, the first act is slow and sluggish; the occasional humor can’t make up for it.

Once the paintings start being sold and people are profiting off of them, the killings begin. While the ideas behind these kills are fun and inventive, the execution of these ideas leaves a lot to be desired. Gilroy relies on cutaways entirely too much, with only a small percentage of the deaths actually occurring onscreen. It’s a baffling choice coming from the director of a voyeuristic piece of work like Nightcrawler. Showing some of the blood shed would have kept things more interesting, or, at the very least, disturbing. Gilroy dulls his vision by never showing it completely.

That’s not to say the movie is completely dull. The actors are chewing the scenery like they know exactly what type of movie this should be. Gyllenhaal puts in typically excellent work as the faux-intellectual critic, and gets some of the best comedic bits in the entire movie. Likewise, Toni Collette is great as a hungry art advisor for a wealthy client. It’s a far cry from her role in Hereditary, proving that she has incredible range. Everyone else does admirably, but with a lot less to do, they don’t steal any scenes.

It’s clear that Gilroy was hurt by the less-than-warm reception his previous film received. Morf is a critic who relishes in tearing down works of art, and gets his comeuppance for it. A scene in which he is forced to listen to his many negative reviews is too on-the-nose to be effective. Gilroy obviously had a lot of ideas here he wanted to explore; he just never juggles them successfully.

That’s not to say that Velvet Buzzsaw is a waste. You can do much worse than this flick, which falls just short of accomplishing its lofty ambitions. In the third act, the film eschews the humor for straight up horror, relying on tension that was never there in the first place.

What should have been a great film merely turned out to be an okay one. Gilroy should have either played up the satire or played up the trashiness. Either one would have elevated this concept. Unfortunately, he tries to play up both, and fails to garner much effectiveness in either. But hey, it’s worth a viewing on Gyllenhaal’s performance alone.