Bullhead (2011)
Directed by Michaël R. Roskam
A young cattle farmer is approached by an unscrupulous veterinarian to make a shady deal with a notorious beef trader.
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What critics compared Bullhead to
Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam, making his U.S. debut after the Oscar-nominated Bullhead (2011), reprises the earlier film's seedy look and murky morality, though this time around he's got a much better screenplay, the first ever by much-adapted novelist Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island).
Director Michaël R. Roskam, following up his blunt, Oscar-nominated 2011 debut Bullhead, gives The Drop the same quiet, close-to-the-chest vibe Mad Dog has, with the same sense of anger in one corner, desperation in another, and sheer crazy in a third, all ready to come out swinging at any moment.
Imagine a mix of Hardy, the try-anything English star who incarnated the catarrhal monster Bane in The Dark Knight Rises and was the only person in-screen in Locke ; Rapace, a revelation as Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy ; Schoenaerts, who played the pathetic cattle farmer in Roskam’s first feature, the Oscar-nominated Bullhead , as well as Marion Cotillard’s therapeutic beau in Rust and Bone ; and Gandolfini the great, in his final film role.
In his first American film, Michaël R Roskam, the Belgian director of Bullhead, dares to emulate (or accidentally echo) one of the key relationships in US cinema.
Fortunately, director Michael Roskam (“Bullhead”) uses the opportunity to create a general mood, tone and look to the film that harks back to those great crime dramas of the ’70s despite not having a nearly as interesting a plot as many of them.
Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam follows his vigorous Oscar-nominated drama “Bullhead” with an elemental mystery Dennis Lehane (“Mystic River”) adapted from his short story “Animal Rescue.”
Schoenaerts, the Belgian star of the Oscar-nominated “ Bullhead ” and the Marion Cotillard drama “Rust and Bone,” offers an ideal combination of physicality and sensitivity, and he has strong chemistry with Mulligan from the start.
Matthias Schoenearts, who came to my attention in 2011 with the Belgian film “Bullhead,” is a smoldering volcano of a man and, from the start; you root for him to get the girl.
And playing the robust, loyal sheep farmer Gabriel Oak — a man as sturdy and forbearing as the tree for which he is named — is the amazing Flemish actor Matthias Schoenaerts, star of such strong European films as “Bullhead” and “Rust and Bone.”
Frank Troy (played by a mustachioed Tom Sturridge); Marry, aka super sexy sheep whisperer and farm hand extraordinaire, Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts from Bullhead ); and Kill, spineless, groveling, rich boy-man William Boldwood (Michael Sheen, now with a beard).
Equally adept at the close-up work is Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust and Bone and Bullhead), stoic and enduring as the honest, reliable farmer Gabriel Oak, the first to propose to Bathsheba back when her prospects weren’t much and he had his own farm.
At the beginning of the film, a comparatively prosperous sheep farmer, Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts, Bullhead and The Drop), wants to marry her — trying to persuade her with the fact that he has 100 sheep.