Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009) Review

After his son Tom is killed in a brutal hit and run accident, Anthony (Eric Bossick) is consumed by an anger so powerful that his body begins to mutate. Anthony’s wife Yuriko (Akiko Monô) believes that their son needs to be avenged but when the driver who killed Tom subsequently reappears to attack Anthony himself, the motives behind such an apparently senseless killing begin to become clearer…

Director Shinya Tsukamoto returns to the Tetsuo universe for a third time after 1989’s The Iron Man and 1992’s Body Hammer with a 2009 standalone piece which takes a different approach to both of its predecessors, being mostly shot in English and using a corporate experiment as the backdrop to its body horror and violent action. As with the first and second instalments, the runtime is a svelte one – this one clocks in at just seventy-one minutes – but this lacks both the mind-bending surrealism of the original and the gritty, cyberpunk sensibilities of its sequel, leaving the viewer with a lot of migraine-inducing shaky cam and some unfortunately ridiculous dialogue.

I’m a fan of the previous Tetsuo movies and, although I’d put off watching this one for a while, I felt it was time to bite the, er, bullet and finally experience the third outing. With Tsukamoto back on board both in front of and behind the camera, plus a theme tune by Nine Inch Nails, what could go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out, which makes me extremely annoyed that I can’t give The Bullet Man a glowing write-up.

Let’s start with some positives. Visually, the film does have an effective, washed out look, in keeping with Anthony’s drained nature and loss of colour in his life which was provided by his child. Along the way, there are a couple of striking moments which transcend what feels like a very low budget, including the brief but potent vision of a city being obliterated. In keeping with the series, the special effects are of the prosthetic type which gives them that authentically tactile and gooey edge even if the design of the titular character isn’t as well crafted or imaginative as the metal monsters of the preceding instalments.

However, most of the enterprise is so rough around the edges that it doesn’t charm, with fight sequences and shootouts that batter the watcher into submission via a blur of jump cuts, bursts of white noise and a camera that never stays still long enough for anyone to get a handle of just what the hell is going on. At one point, I thought Anthony had slaughtered a whole bunch of people but no, he just injured them, a fact which I only realised when someone in the scene mentioned it and the camera slowed down long enough to focus on a supporting cast member who was hurt but still breathing.

Also, between these sporadic, skittish shootouts and slugfests, the pace slows to something very close to a stop, with Anthony musing over his anger issues, the revelation of his past and unwillingness to be responsible for another child. Tsukamoto, credited as “The Guy,” aims for the enigmatic but the repetitive philosophising of the screenplay scuppers any chance he has of essaying a memorable villain. Monô is saddled with a thankless role as a wife whose lust for revenge knows no bounds until the last act ushers in a complete 180 for her character because reasons.

Even the finale, complete with its ticking clock ultimatum and potentially catastrophic ramifications, is frustratingly botched. What should be a sequence full of suspense soon becomes a boring, verbose face-off as Anthony and The Guy argue about their confrontation for what seems like an age before the proceedings fizzle out as Anthony resolves matters in the less than spectacular way that was signposted all along. The closing scene, which throws in a last-minute twist regarding an evil within possibly returning to the surface via a tense social situation, is so rushed and oddly filmed that it’s over and the credits are rolling before it’s given the opportunity to make any impact.

If you’re going to pummel the audience with rapid-fire cuts and retina-bothering visuals, you’d also better make sure that there’s some substance to the story when you inevitably have to get around to that pesky expository stuff and, regrettably, the plotting in Tetsuo: The Bullet Man is gossamer thin, populated by folks who aren’t developed sufficiently to genuinely care about. It may be out of the way in not much over an hour but I felt the slog of every single, grinding minute of this. The Nine Inch Nails theme is pretty damn good, though.

Movie Rating:

Tetsuo: The Bullet Man trailer