Bruiser

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Aiden S @Aidensoutherd2 Jan 28 The way I view this movie was. I feel like they should have at least the mother and the stepfather should have allowed the biological father into the scene And it would have never caused all these problems now, like i'm kind of looking at this through a standpoint of where I come from kind of grew up a similar situations, not to the extent of this But I totally understand how this kid feels And the sad reality is, is that cutting off the biological father is the last thing you want to do to a child They they kind of push the biological father out of the picture and made it out like he wasn't worth knowing when the child wanted to know him regardless of his past Or if he's ever changed at all Why not let the boy figure it out for himself i don't look at this as toxic masculinity as they kind of try to portray this movie. I look at this from a moral standpoint, still a good movie.Just feel like, could at least have a happy ending See more Norman B @KunNeki 06/28/2024 Outstanding cinematography, music, and acting. Unfortunately the films ending will leave a lot to be desired. See more Wayne M @Wayne93 07/19/2023 Bruiser is an immensely powerful film about manhood, fatherhood and toxic masculinity. It's poetic and brutal, a very impressive film from director Miles Warren. Darious is a teenage boy living with his parents. He has friends but is also bullied. His father Malcolm is a solid citizen but is also a strong disciplinarian which Darious struggles with. One day Darious comes across Porter, seemingly a drifter who lives by the river. Porter is cool and engaging. He rides a motorcycle and likes cool music. Darious is enamoured with him and finds a connection there that he doesn't have with Malcolm. But there is back story between Malcolm and Porter which drives a stake in all the relationships. This superb film explores what it is to be a father and how to mentor responsibly, whilst also examining the growth of a teenage boy. There is growing brutality in this film as it reaches an explosive point. But there is also a poetry aided by a resonant music score. Performances are note perfect and honest, especially Jalyn Hall as Darious. This might be a small film in stature but it's undoubtedly a highly impressive one in scope. See more Nakia N @Knew42 02/28/2023 I feel like this movie attacks toxic masculinity in the black community, but seemed to show very little interest in the root causes of such behavior. The film showed very little interest in showing how someone dealing with anger issues can actually truly change and grow rather than either run away from their past or cover it up only for it to boil back to the top in the end. I was very disappointed that both men in the end were reduced to being violent animals with no emotional maturity or sense that they have grown or learned anything in their 15 yrs of life since being teens. There was room for so much more. Why couldn't they speak on what happened as teens beating down the boy, speak on their mutual traumas, how it affected them. When they had already fought and both are there battered and bruised there is an opportunity for that and instead the 2 grown men just continue to fight like animals and the 13 yr old boy ends up having to make the adult decision that up until that point the boys father (not biological) seemed perfectly capable of making. The rational decision that their fighting was pointless, and solved nothing. His words prior showed he had grown. Even his wife believed so, telling him he isn't the only one capable of changing. I just didn't like that it depicted the father preaching growth and that he had learned from his past to his son, but then in the end he is made to be a liar and a hypocrite. I immediately knew with the ending without knowing that the director would be a g*y black male (suspicions confirmed watching interviews). The ending felt like such an attack on straight black men and almost like a verification that the stereotypes society place on us about what we are incapable of are all true. Such a missed opportunity to show the evils of toxic masculinity and then pivot to at least displaying possibilities of there being a path towards overcoming tragedies of your past. Disappointed 😞 See more Sarah Z @RT07784604 02/26/2023 Good acting - good writing. See more Harris R @Harrisons_reviews 02/25/2023 I can't stand watching films in a square bucket. I get having ambition as a newb filmmaker - Miles Warren, who directed and co-wrote this film with Ben Medina, but people don't spend their hard earned money to buy current wide-screen TV's to have to sit through a 1970's tube-television 4:3 aspect ratio square-box viewing experience. That was an unforgiving and unnecessary annoyance, that also made his rookie filmmaking mistakes more evident, and there were many of them. For starters, the pacing was ridiculously slow and had too many long and dragged out scenes. It's almost as if he took his short film (of the same name and content) and stretched it out to fill in a 97 min runtime. We struggled to stay awake and became impatient for the first two acts until the final act, when things finally start to happen. Warren's inexperience in directing his cast was also evident with the constant monotonic dialogue and film's tone with his actors. It lacked any real urgency to keep wanting to watch. The only reason we kept watching was the creativity on how the story was being told, and the dynamics of the two adults who wanted to be a part of Darious' life, played exceptionally well by Jalyn Hall, who in my opinion, stole the show, and was the main reason to keep watching. Had Warren consulted an experienced filmmaker for much needed adjustments to his film, this could've been an Oscar-worthy gem. Nevertheless, as a newb filmmaker, I applaud his ambition and his first full length feature film. I particularly appreciated the non-Hollywood approach to his story, and how real-world it felt. I would've liked a better ending though, with at least some closure. That could've easily fit into the 97 min box. It's a good film, that could've easily been great. Hopefully Warren learns from this, because he certainly has filmmaking-greatness potential. See more Read all reviews

Bruiser

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