The Brown Bunny: Movie & DVD Review (2004)

(Originally published 2004)

A movie whose content and press almost got the best of it.

Here is the film in which Chloe Sevigny famously fellates writer, director and star, Vincent Gallo, for three minutes onscreen. Here is the movie in which Gallo, furious at Roger Ebert's negative review, publicly put a curse on that critic's colon.

Sorting it all out comes down to this--the movie isn't as cuddly as its title suggests (far from it), but on a voyeuristic level, it does create a mood of loneliness, generating interest within the nagging tedium.

This curious, wholly self-involved road movie stars Gallo as Bud Clay, a motorcycle racer on a cross-country quest to forget his girlfriend (Sevigny). Along the way, we get long stretches of road, long stretches of Gallo's profile, short stints in which he meets an odd array of women, including, in one scene, former supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, who quickly gets down to business.

Considering the lack of dialogue (and communication), the movie might as well be silent. For much of the film, it seems as if Gallo is trying to achieve something that isn't there--a meaningful movie. But then he does something unexpected. In the film's closing moments, he twists his film to give it unexpected weight. Those who hang in there might argue that it comes too late.

Grade: C