Shaggy dog story

God bless Kevin Smith.

Yes, Tusk is an unholy insane mess of a movie. Yes, it is self-referential and self-aggrandizing in that peculiar self-deprecating way the writer-director has perfected. Yes, it is oddly paced and plagued by what some might perceive as a purposeful (if perverse) resistance to engage the larger issues it teases. More than 20 years after his lo-fi slacker masterpiece Clerks, Smith still casts himself as the unlettered movie brat who refuses to take anything, much less himself, seriously.

And while this approach probably lowers the ceiling on his potential -- I doubt we'll ever get another movie as fresh and interesting as Clerks out of Smith -- it's an improvement on general Hollywood-style cynicism. Tusk can be read as many things -- including self-parody -- but it's not just another low-budget horror comedy. It's a weird and occasionally fascinating shaggy dog story that parodies the old Gothic Hammer horror films of the '50s and '60s.

Based on a classified ad that was placed in the U.K., ostensibly by a lonely ancient mariner who offered free lodging to any potential roommate who would spend two hours a day dressed in a "realistic walrus costume," the idea for Tusk was fleshed out on a podcast Smith hosts with his longtime friend and collaborator, Scott Mosier. While the ad turned out to be a hoax, Smith and Mosier spun a story about a mad old salt who entraps unsuspecting lodgers and attempts through mutilation to turn them into walruses.

The chief victim in the movie is Wallace Bryton (Justin Long), who might be seen as a kind of Smith substitute. Wallace is a cultural bottom-feeder who, with his best friend, Teddy (Haley Joel Osment), has found a lucrative niche on the Internet trashing the unfortunate geeks and weirdos who through misadventure and incompetence become memes. They call their show the "Not-See Party" (a lame joke, but perhaps that's the point) because the premise involves Wallace traveling around conducting the interviews while Teddy stays home.

Their latest target is a Canadian teenager who has gained notoriety as "The Kill Bill Kid" for a viral video in which he accidentally severs his leg while performing a routine with a samurai sword. (This is an obvious reference to the real-life "Star Wars Kid," a 15-year-old high school student from Quebec who, in 2006, became an Internet celebrity for an inadvertently released video in which he wielded a golf ball retriever in imitation of Darth Maul's light-saber moves.)

But when Wallace arrives in Winnipeg to interview the kid, he finds he's been driven to suicide by cyber-bullying. (The Star Wars kid was also bullied as a result of his video, and left his school for a while. Now he is an anti-bullying advocate.)

This places Wallace in a jam -- he needs a topic for the next show. (And, like Smith, he can't bring himself to face the poignant possibilities that present themselves.) So he answers an ad he finds posted on a bathroom wall in which an old sailor practically begs for company, and he travels two hours into the dark emptiness to arrive at a spooky house inhabited by a man who calls himself Howard Howe (Michael Parks). And he begins to listen to Howard's story about life at sea, including befriending Ernest Hemingway on D-Day and how a walrus saved his life. But he's getting sleepy ....

When Wallace awakes, he has lost a limb and gained the understanding that Howard is not the quirky old gentleman he seems.

It seems beside the point to criticize the apparent laziness of the plotting and overall lack of rigor. Tusk is supposed to feel like a story that's being made up as it's told. So there are some draggy expository monologues by the otherwise excellent Parks (unlike some of Smith's films, all the actors play in the same key) and the film hits some conventional beats in utterly conventional fashion. After Teddy and Wallace's girlfriend Ally (Genesis Rodriguez) arrive in Canada and recruit a Quebecois detective named Guy LaPointe (played by an unrecognizable Hollywood superstar whom I won't reveal here), the film shifts into another gear.

This film isn't for everyone, and I suspect most respectable critics will savage it. But here's the thing: I didn't hate it. It wasn't as gross and disgusting as I expected (though it definitely has some gory bits) and while the storytelling is loose, there are plenty of Smithian grace notes (I'm rooting for "You don't say 'Hitler' in an airport" to achieve classic quote status) to get you through the more obligatory scenes.

It is not a great movie, but it is a bit of a laugh. Which is enough, I suppose, but at the same time I couldn't help wondering what a genuine eccentric like Guy Maddin (or Sam Fuller) might have done with this sort of material. That's not fair to Kevin Smith, who to my knowledge has never claimed to be anything other than a sort of inspired amateur, the fanboy hack who has somehow acquired the means to realize his goal. He's made exactly the sort of movie I expect he'd like to see -- whatever else it is, Tusk is a product of one person's uncompromising vision.

MovieStyle on 09/19/2014