George Romero has been remarkably inconsistent over the years, and BRUISER (unfortunately) points up one of his greatest flaws: he is overindulgent. (Even the highly-touted DAWN OF THE DEAD -the film for which he will be remembered when he's gone, it seems- suffers from this overindulgence.) BRUISER gets off to a slow and somewhat pedestrian start (the script is surprisingly derivative) and never seems to build any momentum whatsoever; it plods along at a snail's pace and even the "acts of retribution" lack any real power. Missing is the visceral violence upon which Romero's (deserved) reputation is based. It seems here that he's trying to somehow "rise above" his reputation as a gore meister- at the very moment he needed to push the envelope. Bad casting helps hurt this film as well; the lead has all the charisma of a wooden dummy. When he washes his face down the drain, all that's left is his personality... which he never had in the first place. Romero, while not a prolific filmmaker, has often done interesting work precisely because he's not part of the mainstream (I refer you to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE CRAZIES, KNIGHTRIDERS, and MARTIN), and I'm willing to bet he'll do even more interesting movies in the future. BRUISER, sad to say, isn't one of them.
