Marcelo Mayen's BULLOCK THE BRUISER screens at NewFilmmakers New York at AFA

Normally, TrustMovies does not cover short films, given the amount of new full-length features he is asked to view and review. But since he was told that BULLOCK THE BRUISER, a film by Marcelo Mayen (shown below), had won "Best Feature" at the Monthly Film Festival, he decided to take a chance. Surprise: Full-length it is not, since it comes in at just 40 minutes. But that, perhaps, is best, since much more might have proven too much, as these minutes pack in every typical trope of the revenge-thriller genre.

Or is this actually a send-up of that genre? Either way, the film keeps toppling over into cliché, while showing us that, yes, violence is clearly the only answer. Along its short journey, Bullock the Bruiser does offer up a very handsome hero, the titular bruiser played by Will Parker (shown below); a fairly typical film-noirish bad girl, played in a bright red wig with not quite enough strength by Alice Dessuant (shown further below); a couple of not-

so-interesting "good" girls, played by Esther van Zyl (in the photo at bottom) and Danielle DeWulf (in the penultimate photo), one of which has already come to a sad end; and a "bad guy" (Max Turner, two photos below) who turns out to be not-so-bad after all.

Mr. Mayen has staged his "action"scenes with all the finesse and inadequacy of Christopher Nolan in his early Batman mode, with the plot, such as it is, made up of mostly exposition with which one character regales another.

So what's the point here? Well, I'd guess, Bullock the Bruiser is supposed to act as a kind of "calling card" short that can show that Mr. Mayen is capable of handling something larger and longer.

Considering the low-intelligence level of so many of our major movies these days, particularly the increasingly would-be super-hero block-busters, I'd say our filmmaker is more than ready to tackle the big league.

Meanwhile, if you'd care to take a look at his work, Bullock the Bruiser will screen, via NewFilmmakers New York, this coming Wednesday, June 7, at 7:30 pm at the Courthouse Theater at Anthology Film Archives.