Today’s quick review: Bullet Head. After a robbery gone wrong, three thieves (Adrien Brody, John Malkovich, and Rory Culkin) hole up in a warehouse until the heat dies down. Their sole companion is an aggressive dog trained for pit fighting by its owner Blue (Antonio Banderas) and left behind after the last match. With the police searching the area and loot that’s too heavy to carry on foot, the thieves must find a way out of the tight situation.
Bullet Head is a minimalistic crime drama about a trio of criminals trapped in a warehouse with a ferocious dog. Bullet Head places a greater emphasis on character and dialogue than most crime films. The film takes a close look at the lives and personalities of the three criminals, as well as the experience of the dog itself. The tradeoff, however, is slow pacing, limited amounts of action, and a plot that barely goes anywhere.
Bullet Head has an unusual setup. The bulk of the film is spent hunkered down in the warehouse, waiting for more favorable circumstances to make an escape. Stacy (Adrien Brody), Walker (John Malkovich), and Gage (Rory Culkin) pass the time by sharing stories from their own lives. These stories end up being the film’s main draw, thanks to their crisp writing and skilled delivery, but they do little to advance the plot.
The other unusual aspect of Bullet Head is its focus on the dog, apparently named De Niro. The film is as much about dog fighting as anything else, and it treats De Niro as a full-fledged character, including flashbacks to his training and first-person segments chronicling how he came to be locked up in a warehouse by himself. These segments are inventive but can’t carry the movie; De Niro’s story is too simple and too obvious to justify its centrality.
In exchange for its focus on dog fighting and its anthology format, Bullet Head has very little in the way of plot. The criminals’ exploration of the warehouse gives the film a slight sense of progression, but their situation never changes all that much until the finale. The action consists of a handful of scrapes with the dog and the criminals’ final break for freedom, but there’s less of it than can be found in most budget crime movies.
Watch Bullet Head if you’re interested in thoughtful, well-delivered writing for its own sake, with no real story to support it. Though not exactly profound, the dialogue is interesting enough, and it’s backed by a pair of solid performances from Adrien Brody and John Malkovich. But the film’s slow pacing and lack of a clear direction mean that the individual stories that compose it are all but meaningless in the end.
For a darker, tenser story about criminals hiding in a warehouse, check out Reservoir Dogs. For a black comedy about a shootout in a warehouse, try Free Fire. For a similar setup with kidnapping and amnesia thrown into the mix, try Unknown. For a well-written crime drama with a better story, try Goodfellas or Donnie Brasco.
5.3 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 6.0 to 6.5 for polished acting and writing that belie a weak premise and a thin plot.