Bautista's surprising performance a highlight of violent 'Bushwick'
It takes 50 minutes into this movie before we finally find out why unidentified military units dressed in black uniforms invade, shoot up and blow up the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick.
Texas has finally made good on its desire to secede from the Union ...
... along with Louisiana, Kentucky, Florida, South Dakota, West Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee and parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania.
But why, of all places, did they invade Bushwick?
Because, as a captured soldier from Kentucky explains, they thought Bushwick had the fewest amount of guns to offer resistance.
A local woman rolls her eyes at the man and says, "Welcome to New York, you stupid (insert queen mother of swear words here)!"
"Bushwick," an Armageddon-esque thriller from "Cooties" directors Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott, represented a perfect opportunity to give us insights into our culture, political system, gun obsession, race relations, religious convictions and changing national identity.
But noooooooooooo!
"Bushwick" remains a straightforward apolitical survival thriller, something like a very early John Carpenter indie done on the cheap.
It begins with grad student Lucy ("Pitch Perfect" star Brittany Snow) and her disposable boyfriend arriving at a New York subway stop.
They witness the beginning of a massive civil war that fries the boyfriend to a crisp, and sends a frightened Lucy into the mean streets of another ground zero.
She soon meets up with an ex-Marine janitor Stupe ("Guardians of the Galaxy" star David Bautista).
They exchange clunky dialogue about God and their families, run a lot, hide and duck. Stupe gets a glass shard in his leg. A bullet blows off Lucy's ring finger. ("What am I going to do when I get married?" she sobs.)
They eventually join Lucy's saucy pothead sister Belinda (Angelic Zambrana), and they go off to find a nearby church that reportedly can transport people out of harm's way.
(Parenthetically, I read a few years ago that the most repeated line of movie dialogue is "We gotta get outta here!" Well, if it weren't true before, it is now, because "Bushwick" fires off that imperative like bullets.)
So, dialogue and character development in "Bushwick" may be disappointing, as is Aesop Rock's generic, over-employed score.
But this movie has two big stars in the sound design - aural landscapes that flush "Bushwick" with epic realism - and the cinematography, intricately staged choreography between the camera, sets, extras and main stars captured in long, fluid, unedited tracking shots that seem even longer when connected by subtle, camouflaged splices.
Brittany Snow stumbles through the thicket of Nick Damici's and Graham Reznick's snaggy dialogue while finding her inner Wonder Woman.
Bautista turns in the film's surprise performance. The pro wrestler and bodybuilder says a lot with few words, and he makes an awkwardly written personal revelation sound touchingly normal.
I'd say more about this, but we gotta get outta here!
“Bushwick”
★ ★
Starring: Brittany Snow, Dave Bautista, Angelic Zambrana
Directed by: Cary Murnion, Jonathan Milott
Other: An RLJ Entertainment release. At the Woodridge 18 Theaters. Not rated by the MPAA; contains violence, coarse language. 94 minutes