WATCH NOW
This movie will alienate any New Yorker who has lived in New York for a long time within the first ten minutes. There is a montage of view shots of Brooklyn at the start of the movie, which is relatively enjoyable. But these grow more sinister in tone as we note the presence of a machine gun barrel in the bottom of the frame. Oh man. Then cut to a subway station. Church Avenue, served by the G and F lines, as the visible signage shows. Brittany Snow’s character ‘Lucy‘ is walking toward the stairs out of the station when she is stopped. She is with her no-name boyfriend, who is somewhat passive. They’re mildly concerned because there doesn’t seem to be anyone around, but otherwise mock the prospect of Milquetoast’s boyfriend meeting Lucy’s grandmother. A man whose body is completely aflame and screaming begins to run down the subway’s stairs. We lose reverie, and a lot more.
Looking at the sight carefully, it does seem fit that a sensible man would without a doubt attempt to go down back to the track level and catch the nearest train, but somehow, Milquetoast and Lucy feel obliged to try and resolve the problem. The first thing that comes to mind is a twelve o’clock train, and grandma is somehow professional within the topic of trains arriving on time. Sadly, both Milquetoast and the grandmother have a loose sense of time, bringing in a huge element of chaos. Again, this sight is so gory that even milquetoast ends up in flames. Thankfully though, Lucy is wise and strict, so she chooses the pavement first.
She is running away and gets chased by an angry street tormenter into the basement. One of them is black, while the other is white. It’s for balance. Though it happens that the black one is the stronger, menacing, more sexually violent one. Anyway, putting a halt to the unsettling piece of race debate is Dave Bautista, “Stupe,” a former Marine who happens to own the basement where the rape is taking place. He deals with the villains rather swiftly, but he does not seem to be particularly welcoming towards Lucy, or at least not at the beginning.
As for the fact that will surely entice New Yorkers, on the subway, Lucy is shown to be within the boundaries of Brooklyn, precisely in the Bushwick neighborhood. She runs past the notable Owl Juice Pub on Jefferson Avenue, along with other well-known places. However, the unfortunate part is that the Church Avenue station from which she is said to appear does not come close to Bushwick. Later, Lucy reveals to Stupe that she boarded the L train as depicted in the beginning of the film; the Church Street station is for the G and F trains, which is the point of this movie.
What is the problem? You may want to consult Martin Scorsese. In various interviews with him, he talks about how psychotic it would make him in the old Hollywood movies to see a couple make a turn in Greenwich Village and then somehow find themselves walking on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. But this is a deep-rooted issue. Nick Damici and Graham Reznick, the screenwriters, seem to have used their imaginary depiction of this transforming neighborhood in the county of Kings, solely based on the old hyperbolic TV cop show “Brooklyn South,” which was used by parents to frighten children from coming to the borough.
Lucy is a spoiled, feeble-witted child who possesses some level of intelligence due to the fact that she does not go into shock, a state one would reasonably expect her to slip into many times throughout her day. Stupe is an average Bautista character: reticent, grunty, all that. He’s a former Marine who is supposed to have, well, Rambo-style abilities and when he finally decides to show Lucy how to shoot a gun, he forgets to inform her where the safety is.
This film is focused mostly on a bunch of mobile long-take single action camera shots, which, I believe, would capture the audience’s attention more if the characters on the run and in combat were more appealing. They are not. These set pieces are either becoming far simpler to arrange or they are the only skill of co-directors Cary Murnion and Jonathan Milott, because there’s no other way the filmmakers define themselves. The disturbing and exploitative narrative is a menace from within situation which is absurd but somehow still manages to be relevant. The dramatically anti-climatic ending, which consists of sheer absurdity, is more like pint-size mockery and was probably meant to applaud the recently deceased horror film director.
To watch more movies like Bushwick (2017), visit 123movies
Also watch for more movies like:
