Theatrical Review of My Name is Bruce

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"If you don´t love Bruce Campbell, you walk!"

That´s the warning teenager Jeff (Taylor Sharpe) gives to a passenger who dares to diss the Bruce Campbell DVDs piled on his car seat. It´s also advice that any prospective viewer should heed. If you don´t love Bruce Campbell, walk, or perhaps run, from the theater.

Even if you do love Bruce Campbell (as I do, but not, like, in a creepy way), you might find yourself squirming in your seat at this disappointingly flat attempt at self-skewering satire directed by and starring the pre-eminent cult actor of the past 30 years.

Bruce Campbell plays Bruce Campbell, but not the real Bruce Campbell, or at least not the gracious man who shows up at fan conventions and who appears in the short documentary "Fanalysis." Ash became increasingly crasser and dimmer in each "Evil Dead" film, and the progression has continued here. This Bruce is a drunk and a boor, so comically abusive to his fans that he even pushes a wheelchair-bound man into traffic. It´s an image Campbell has cultivated in several (though not all) of his film and television roles and he plays it to perfection. He´s not an anti-hero, but an un-hero, a completely ineffective protagonist with delusions of grandeur and a total lack of self-awareness.

It doesn´t play as well when the role is labeled "Bruce Campbell." Sure, we know that this Bruce Campbell is every bit as much a fictional creation as Ash or Jack Stiles or Autolycus, King of Thieves, but somehow it just… hurts to see a mean-spirited Bruce alienating fans and making a total ass of himself. Completely absent is the good-natured humor that Campbell displayed in creating another fictional version of himself in the funniest book I have read in years, "Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way." The (attempted) humor here is so blunt and cruel you´d almost think the director had it in for his star.

The story starts with Jeff and several other teens rampaging through a graveyard for Chinese railroad workers in the backwater town of Gold Lick, OR. Jeff inadvertently unleashes a demon named Guan Di who slaughters the other teens in standard B-movie fashion. We cut abruptly to Bruce who is suffering through the final shooting days of "Cave Alien 2." He crudely hits on his disgusted leading lady, abuses a group of eager fans, and gets drunk in his beat-up trailer. Out of the blue Jeff shows up and kidnaps Bruce.

Why? Because Jeff has decided, as all people who unwittingly unleash Chinese demons would, that the only man who can save their town is his favorite actor Bruce Campbell. At first Campbell has no patience for the primitive screwheads of Gold Lick but he soon sets his eye on Jeff´s mother Kelly (Grace Thorsen) who he slyly seduces with an offer to show her his boomstick and the observation that "A MILF is a MILF."

Campbell assumes the demon-story is a joke and leads the townspeople into battle until he finds out it´s all too real whereupon, like a total Ash, he runs like hell. Eventually, he changes his mind and tries to make amends for his cowardice.

There are plenty of in-jokes for the fans, most obviously regarding the rightfully-worshipped "Evil Dead" franchise. The car Jeff drives sure looks a lot like Sam Raimi´s legendary beat-up Delta Royale which has made more guest appearances than Charo. Bruce´s ex-wife Cheryl is played by Ellen Sandweiss who also played Cheryl in "Evil Dead." True Dead-heads will get the real joke here – Cheryl was Ash´s sister. Dan Hicks (hillbilly Jake in "Evil Dead 2") and Tim Quill (the blacksmith in "Army of Darkness") also show up. Bruce´s dog is named Sam ´n Rob (Raimi and Tapert) and uber-Shemp and Sam´s brother Ted Raimi plays multiple roles, including Bruce´s agent.

One truism of Campbell´s somewhat suspect oeuvre is that no matter how bad the movie, he is always good in it (he is the one and only reason "Bubba Ho-tep" succeeds). Oddly enough, "My Name is Bruce" is an exception to this rule. Campbell is so hammy, even by his own standards, that he strangles most of the jokes and sucks much of the joy out of even the most fanboyish of fanboy moments. Maybe Campbell needs to be reigned in by a director other than himself.

Early in the film, Jeff states that "Bruce Campbell is one of the greatest actors of his generation." It´s meant to be as over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek as everything else in the film but I honestly believe it to be true. Campbell is a natural comic and gifted physical performer (nobody beats the crap out of himself as well as Bruce Campbell) and can take over a movie with even a minor cameo role like his Maître d´ in "Spider-Man 3." It´s a shame to see such talent squandered here on such a one-note performance.

Judging by the ratings on IMDB, the fans still love Bruce enough to, well, love Bruce in "Bruce," but I can´t share the enthusiasm. Even though I love Bruce. But not, like, in a creepy way.

A 4/10 on the DVDTown scale.

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