Film Review: ‘Velvet Buzzsaw’
Velvet Buzzsaw that went straight from the SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL onto the Netflix is probably the campiest movie we have seen for some time. Written and directed by DAN GILROY and packed with a A list cast that included JAKE GYLLENHAAL, RENE RUSSO, TONI COLLETTE, TOM STURRIDGE and JOHN MALKOVICH it’s a psychological sci-fi thriller about how greed in the art world can have fatal consequences.
Everyone is decked out in their best fashionista outfits and living in spectacular contemporary L.A. mansions with the exception of Josephina (ZAWE ASHTON) a junior Art Gallery agent who lives in an old apartment downtown. When one of her reclusive neighbors dies she discovers that his apartment is crammed full of extraordinary and disturbing art.
When her boss and a famous critic (Gyllenhaal) (and her soon to be temporary boyfriend) decide this is the work of a genius, they steal it all and present it to the world with the idea of making an obscene amount of money. However unbeknown to anyone a supernatural force enacts revenge on those who have allowed their greed to get in the way of art.
Gyllenhaal is pitch perfect as the outrageous critic who ditches his live-in-hot boyfriend to try his luck with Josephina is by far the best thing in Velvet Buzzsaw, and he is the reason to keep with it until its bloody conclusion. It’s rather silly story does at least show the vapidness of the art world, and gives us another (and too rare) opportunity to see Rene Russo back on our screens