In a post-apocalyptic world, a bounty hunter attempts to save humanity from a race of human/pig hybrids.
Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Valeri Milev
Starring: Danny Trejo, Ester Chardaklieva, Yana Marinova, Dessy Slavova, Timur Turisbekov
I hate to pull out the old cliché of "this movie has to be seen to be believed," but in the case of director Valeri Milev's bonkers Balkans b-movie bloodbath Bullets of Justice, words can only go so far in conveying the inventive and immature insanity this movie delivers.
In the years following the Third World War, which has left the planet in post-apocalyptic ruins, the human race finds itself fighting a losing battle against the armies of human/pig hybrids genetically created by the warring American and Russian militaries. Eking out a narcissistic living in this ham-fisted new world is bounty hunter Rob Justice (co-writer Timur Turisbekov), who amasses a small fortune collecting the heads of our new bacon overlords.
Justice is recruited by the human rebellion to track down Benedict Asshole, a prominent pig-man with an anus for a snout. He teams up with fellow bounty hunter Nina (Yana Marinova), with whom he regularly engages in energetic bouts of sexual intercourse, turned off neither by the fact that Nina is his biological sister, or that she sports a mustache. In a nod to North by North West, Nina is asked why she wears a mustache, and her reply is drowned out by the whirring blades of a helicopter. A mustache also adorns the face of a cyborg, and when he speaks the mustache moves up and down in the style of one of Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations.
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The plot is rudimentary here, and I doubt even the filmmakers could relate it back to you if you asked them to pin it down. It sees Justice and Nina travel to a bombed out New York where they battle various pig-men in between Justice having his way with a bevy of silicone-enhanced sidekicks in graphic sex scenes that don't skimp on nudity from either Turisbekov or his female co-stars. Oh, and there's also a sub-plot concerning the winner of a Mister Universe contest, a Michael Bolton lookalike who beat Justice into second place. While having sex with women, Justice fantasises about this bloke's ass, which he claims is the only butt on earth better than his own.
But wait...there's more. At one point a character turns up who bears a striking resemblance to soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, only for it to be revealed that the character actually is Cristiano Ronaldo. He's played by a lookalike - a brief cameo by Danny Trejo is as close as Bullets of Justice gets to star power - but the fact that a former footballer is a leader of the human resistance is no odder than anything else in this movie.
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Shot with a washed out, shit brown palette that adds to the feeling that you really need to take a shower after the credits roll, Bullets of Justice is one of the most visually repulsive movies you'll ever endure. But it's also incredibly inventive, with Milev delivering images that you can honestly say you've never seen before. Best of all is a scene where Justice teleports accidentally into a wall, his arm and leg emerging from the wall and battling foes while the rest of his body is trapped in its concrete structure.
Though it runs a brief 76 minutes, Bullets of Justice often tests your patience with its juvenile humour, and some of its gags are nowhere near as funny as its writers seem to believe they are. But there are moments that will have you creased over in laughter, whether intentional or not. A scene in which a character spends an age trying to undo the knot of a plastic bag carrying something important is pure comic genius, the inanity of the detail dragged out for an age. Much of the comedy comes from the butchering of the English language by its Bulgarian and Kazakh cast, and the actress who delivers Justice his orders gives arguably the worst performance ever committed to film.
Bullets of Justice is a mix of tedium, immaturity, laugh out loud intentional comedy, laugh out loud unintentional comedy, and the odd moment of visual inventiveness. In other words, it's more satisfying than most Hollywood blockbusters, and a lot more original.
A UK/ROI release has yet to be announced.
"I haven't seen a directorial debut that combines arrogance with talent to such a level as this in quite some time."— 𝕋𝕙𝕖𝕄𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕎𝕒𝕗𝕗𝕝𝕖𝕣.𝕔𝕠𝕞 🎬 (@themoviewaffler) November 3, 2019
Read @hilliseric's #IFIHorrorthon review of WHY DON'T YOU JUST DIE!https://t.co/pbLxMHfHIz pic.twitter.com/HRAmU3kuw4