My Name Is Bruce

My Name Is Bruce

The history of major stars who have had a leading role in a film while playing themselves is a short one (though not as much so for cameo roles). The risk is obviously inherent since if you allow your “character” to be portrayed in any sort of a bad light, it can actually reflect badly on your known public image but if the whole thing comes off as being just right, the result can be nothing short of brilliant. John Malkovich of course pulled it off to perfection in Being John Malkovich by not only doing a sly satire of himself (and Hollywood stars in general) but also outright stealing the movie from his other big name co stars (who all had the luxury of playing fictional characters) and turning in an Oscar worthy performance that wound up being ignored instead. Our next case in point is one Bruce Campbell, a guy who absolutely rocked the cinematic landscape playing Ash in The Evil Dead Trilogy (and continues to do so today) and very well could have been a major A list star doing either horror or comedy if he had chosen to do so, but instead decided to do his own thing and bask in the glow of being arguably the biggest B movie star in the world, doing endless low budget movies of varying quality all while tirelessly traveling the horror movie convention circuit meeting his fans, signing autographs and posing for pictures and thus making himself much more accessible than any A list guy ever could. As far as his screen persona goes (as mostly defined by Ash), Campbell is fearless but also cocky with a tendency to be a smartass in the face of great danger or even more powerful enemies all while making it a point to be slick with the ladies even if some of his efforts there come up fruitless. Even if the script or director let him down, his fans will always make it a point to seek out everything that he’s done (and that definitely takes some effort) all while he continues to do cameos and smaller parts in the occasional major movie (such as Sam Raimi’s Spidermans). Campbell thankfully is all too aware of this persona which he carries (including how his so called lecherous side is meant to be a joke) so in 2007 he made the decision to move forward with his own “Being” type project, one which he himself directed (obviously to make sure it got done right) on a near microbudget of $1.5 million and also where (if you didn’t understand how much of Campbell’s schtick is only a goof) he clearly showed that he just didn’t give two shits if any or all of the whole thing made him look bad, just as long as it was funny. Certainly, Campbell was keen to take some creative liberties with the depiction of his own life including showing himself living in a trailer (which he obviously does not) and having an ex wife (played by Ellen Sandweiss who had played Ash’s sister in the first Evil Dead) whom he despises even as he constantly calls her up in the middle of the night harassing her (when in reality Campbell has been happily married to the same woman since 1991). The plot of sorts begins with four goofy goth minded teenagers meeting up in an old cemetary where (naturally) one of the teens is a diehard, devout fan of Bruce Campbell movies (so much so that we’re told that it has stifled his ability to get laid). Once in the romantic setting with his best buddy and two goth girls, his attempts to use Ash style pickup lines is met with laughter. Suddenly, a VERY cheap looking demon (who looks like something out of Sgt. Kabukiman) emerges and slaughters three out of the four teens with only the Campbell fan escaping with his life. It turns out that these events are taking place in the extremely small town of Gold Lick, Oregon (with a population pushing only slightly northward of 300) and that the majority of the townspeople are literally the kind of hicks who are just as dumb as they appear. Meanwhile, Campbell is shown being hard at work on his latest opus (Cave Alien 2) shamelessly hitting on his female co star between takes and generally pissing off the entire crew with his attitude. His whole life is a mess as his shifty agent (played by Ted Raimi who also plays two other roles here) is constantly nickel and diming him while also sleeping with his ex wife in addition to him clearly having a drinking problem which no doubt contributes to his quick witted but totally obnoxious personality (Campbell has been quoted as saying that it is “impossible” for an actor to not always put a large part of themselves into their roles as his “real life” persona seems to contain a large dose of Ash’s attitude minus the character’s more noble qualities). It isn’t long before he is hit over the head and kidnapped by his number one teenage fan who brings him back to Gold Lick with the intention of having him face off against this (Chinese) demon in order to save this miserable excuse of a town. It’s clear that we are NOT meant to have any empathy for these townspeople or their plight but rather to think of them as just being warm bodies for which we can enjoy watching this creature slaughter. The only exceptions are the number one fan and his (extremely) hot young mother (Grace Thorsen) whom Campbell takes a quick liking to and thus comes on so strong that it would make a true gentleman wince. Of course the overall stupidity of this town (and not just the kid) in thinking that this movie actor could ever do anything to help them with Campbell playing along by thinking that this is all just part of another movie is just inconceivable. But it is funny, right down to Campbell’s obvious contempt for the hicks that he’s dealing with (which is not at all dissimilar from Ash’s contempt for the medieval types that he was around in Army Of Darkness). It’s probably best to say that the only way to take this movie in is to think of it in the strictest terms as being just a comedy and not even as an actual legit horror spoof either, but really rather as an authorized spoof of the life and career of Bruce Campbell himself and on that level there’s a ton of laughs to be had here especially with Campbell’s innate ability to spout off (and possibly adlib?) a ton of funny lines right there on the spot, proving without a doubt that his A list career could have been that of a wisecracking leading man (though at least Army had the ultra cool heroism of Ash carrying that film above and beyond while Campbell as himself does not). In fact, Campbell proves to be such an inept coward here that when he leads an entire lynch mob out into the woods and lays eyes for the very first time on the demon that he’s supposed to be destroying (“What the fuck is THAT?”), his first instinct is to turn tail and run away screaming, even firing his gun behind him and actually KILLING a number of the townspeople who are following behind him (hahaha!). Indeed, the real running gag of the film seems to be in the hilarious way that Bruce Campbell treats his fellow human beings like absolute shit, whether it be kicking away a wheelchair bound autograph seeker so that he goes rolling down the street or even forcing a little old lady out of her car and throwing her down into the dirt so that he can steal her vehicle to continue his escape from this godawful town. It seems as almost if the sword wielding demon can go around chopping off the heads of nameless, unlikable small town hicks indiscrimately, then the same goes for Campbell as well with nearly every character (and extra) being fair game for his abuse except for the teenage fan and his hot mother (and even then it still takes Campbell a little while to get warmed up to them). The ending finally sees Campbell work up the courage to team with his two favorite residents to face off against the creature and while as a director and storyteller it can be argued that Campbell clearly blows the finish of the film (using a stupid gimmick that’s just too dumb to describe), it just reinforces the fact that he was clearly making a comedy all along with no actual pretensions to anything in the actual horror realm and for that, it’s refreshing to see a movie star (ANY movie star) who clearly does not take himself all that seriously and who obviously decided from the getgo in his career that making people laugh and smile at your goofy antics was far more important than competing for any kind of awards in movies that almost nobody goes to see, a fact that his millions of fans will always love him for…

8/10

Click here to watch or buy this item at Amazon!