Bullhead: Critic Reviews

Bullhead proves that you can make an underworld movie pumped up with pretension.

Part character study, part crime thriller, "Bullhead" is the impressive but deeply flawed first feature written and directed by Michael R. Roskam.

This thriller about a steroid-boosting farmer lost in the moral maze of Belgium's mafia underworld is a stylish, meaty treat.

Many terms applied to action movies - muscular, animalistic, testosterone-fueled - are literally true of Bullhead.

[It] has enough strands of story for an epic tale. But Roskam appears more interested in trying to combine genres that don't easily cohere.

The sentiment, just like the repeated shots of Jacky lying in the fetal position in a tub, shadowboxing, and erupting into a bestial 'roid rage, typifies the film's habit of flattening an idea rather than developing it.

Well-made, engrossing and almost unbearably grim.

Bullhead is a fierce slab of filmmaking served sizzling hot, but at the center it's ice-cold and bloody.

Some of the dialogue is overloaded, but the formidable cinematography, by Nicolas Karakatsanis, envelops us in an ever-darkening world.

It's one of those films you have to reconstruct in your mind.

Despite the unlikely setup, this Oscar-nominated thriller proves that where illegal substances are concerned, one line of trafficking is as deadly as another.

Take a chance and you will be rewarded with a work of nightmarish force that is unforgettable.

Though the story is told and edited in a way that too often obscures rather than enhances its central tragedy, much is compensated by a career-defining, powerfully physical lead perf by Matthias Schoenaerts.

Guided with a sure hand by writer-director Roskam, Bullhead is a tragic character study in the guise of a seedy crime drama.

I hope we'll be getting another chance to watch Matthias Schoenaerts' work in the near future -- as huge as he is in this role, I suspect there's plenty more to see.

Michael R. Roskam's feature debut finds a gem in Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts, who leads a strong cast.

Eventually it reveals itself to be a character drama about the way the past shapes us and our inability to escape it, no matter how convincingly we believe we've transformed ourselves.

Starts out like a thriller and turns into a disturbing tragedy in an unlikely and unexpected key.

Roskam hooks us like a master and leads us where he needs to and wants to - on HIS terms and those that the story demands.

Roskam has created a convoluted but airtight plot involving undercover investigations, betrayals and revenge, it doesn't go in the direction one might expect.

[A] bleak, dense, complex thriller ...

It's compelling, and Schoenaerts is a treat as this taciturn knot of angst and muscle tone, but Michael R Roskam's film is short on humanity and dash.

Dark and involving, this shocking Belgian drama not only earned an Oscar nomination but propelled its director and leading man into much bigger movies.

It looks fantastic, boasts an unusual storyline and Schoenaerts is as compelling as a young Marlon Brando.