Bullhead (15) 124 mins ***
An Oscar
nominee this time last year in the Best Foreign Film category – where it lost
to the unstoppable A Separation –
this tough, unusual Belgian thriller finally reaches UK cinemas thanks to the
presence of Rust and Bone’s
bruiser-in-chief Matthias Schoenaerts. He’s playing Jacky, a farmer who rules
his region’s cattle market with an iron fist, beefing himself up on the same
illegal growth hormones his associates have started pumping into the cows. As
the net closes in on the killer of a detective pursuing the
hormone-traffickers, a flashback reveals the origins of Jacky’s addiction: one
scene is guaranteed to leave even hardened viewers wincing. At two hours,
there’s a lot of grunting and knuckle-cracking, but it never lacks for dramatic
heft – and Schoenaerts gives an obvious breakthrough turn as the Frankenfarmer,
using his bulk to conceal just how damaged Jacky really is.
Bullhead opens in selected cinemas from today.
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