For whatever this label may be worth, Buzzard has “sleeper hit” written all over it. The word earned over a few festival showings has been almost unanimously positive, and its low-fi approach to depicting the modern slacker should strike certain chords that most filmmakers never consider — or, at the very least, don’t approach with this level of insight. So says our review, which pegged Joel Potrykus‘ film as one of the most exciting pictures in contemporary American cinema,” as well as an effort that “takes pages out Taxi Driver [and] Mauvais Sang.”
You might not hear Bernard Hermann or David Bowie when watching this preview — a reliance on trashy heavy metal is more the order of the day — but there’s value in the images on display (“Potrykus’s shooting style sneakily frames things for the highest laughter”), and I did indeed laugh, which is about all I’m asking from a preview. Your to-watch list for 2015 is probably missing Buzzard, but there’s a chance that’ll change soon.
Watch the trailer below (via Twitch):
Synopsis:
Marty is a caustic, small-time con artist drifting from one scam to the next. When his latest ruse goes awry, mounting paranoia forces him from his lousy small town temp job to the desolate streets of Detroit with nothing more than a pocket full of bogus checks, a dangerously altered Nintendo® Power Glove, and a bad temper. Albert Camus meets Freddy Krueger in BUZZARD, a hellish and hilarious riff on the struggles of the American working class.