BUSHWICK (2017) *

Brittany Snow returns home to Bushwick to introduce her boyfriend to her folks.  They don’t think it’s strange that the subway is completely desolate until they see a man on fire running around.  They soon learn that the city is overrun by guys in tactical gear gunning citizens down.  Brittany’s boyfriend doesn’t last long, and she is left to fend for herself until she teams up with a janitor (Dave Bautista) who agrees to help escort her to her grandma’s house.

Dave Bautista is probably the greatest wrestler-turned-actor since “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.  Even when Piper starred in a turkey, it was usually still worth watching just because of his screen presence.  I don’t know if Bautista is quite there yet.  Bushwick (which was co-written by Stake Land 2’s Nick Damici) is not a good movie.  In fact, it’s a rather terrible one, but Bautista’s very appearance kept me awake even during its draggier sections.

Bushwick has an OK gimmick in that it is told in real time and done in one long continuous take.  The seams in the editing are painfully obvious to spot (especially whenever the camera enters a darkened hallway), which immediately takes you out of the “You Are There” aspect the directors (Cary Murnion and Johnathan Milott) were trying to create, so I’m not even sure why they bothered.  Some prolonged sequences feel like a video game while others go for an Asylum version of Children of Men or something.  None of them are suspenseful or foreboding.

The bad guys aren’t all that threatening either.  They’re just a bunch of dudes in black helmets and Kevlar vests.  They probably should’ve gotten a refund on those vests since they all can be killed rather easily, usually by one shot from a handgun, fired from a long way away.

Once we find out what’s going on, the movie begins really starts spinning its wheels.  Although the reveal is novel, it makes the danger seem, I don’t know, lackluster.  I don’t want to spoil anything, but it winds up being like a racist version of Red Dawn or something.  It was scarier when we didn’t know what was happening.

The last act is dire.  It’s as if the filmmakers forgot how to end a movie and just decided to throw their hands up in the air and walk away.  This sort of downbeat ending has been done better in the past, most notably in Night of the Living Dead.  The filmmakers were obviously going for a shocking type of ending, but they fail miserably.  They might’ve been able to get a rise out of their audience if we identified with the characters or cared about their plight.  As it is, we’re just glad the fucking thing is over.

AKA:  Bushwick:  The Last Man Standing.