Review: Kevin Smith's 'Tusk' Starring Justin Long and Michael Parks

Kevin Smith is both a director whose work is both easy to love and easy to dislike. He cultivated a large and extremely loyal following telling personal and very funny stories about his life growing in New Jersey. Whether you cared about hockey or the Quik Stop, they were films that were easy to relate to. But then Smith got famous, grew disenfranchised with the movies he was making and the Hollywood system, and set out on a different path; one that sees him making fewer movies for his fans but more for him....or somebody. There's an audience out there for his latest, the creepy crawly body horror Tusk, but it's not this Smith fan.

Tusk was inspired by an episode of Smith's podcast, and if that sounds like one flimsy-ass basis for a movie then you are so right. It's a one-note gag stretched to the limit, but worse it's devoid of Smith's razor sharp wit and personal insights. It's not for lack of trying, but every attempt comes off as limp, Smith-lite. For instance, the protagonist is Wallace (Justin Long), a smartass with a podcast that got popular for making fun of people. Wallace and his buddy Teddy (Haley Joel Osment, looking...uhh, unlike Haley Joel Osment) call their show the Not-See Party, for reasons hardly worth explaining. But you see the obvious gag in it, right? Say it and it sounds like Nazi Party, a joke we're steamrolled with far too often.

When a pseudo-Star Wars Kid chops off a limb (some awful special effects there, by the way)  in a stunt gone wrong, Wallace books it to Canada to interview him. But when the meeting goes awry in strangely downbeat fashion, Wallace must find something else to do in the great white north. A couple of dusted-off Canada jokes later (people say "aboot" there!!) and Wallace is invited to Manitoba and the estate of Howard Howe (Michael Parks), a recluse with a ton of stories at his disposal and the unending desire to tell them. If the "Most Interesting Man in the World" were a little more sing-songy and awkward, he'd be Howe. Over tea he tells Wallace about his storming the beach at Normandy, meeting famous people, and most amazingly the one time he was rescued from death by a Walrus. He's particularly fond of that story. Disturbingly so. That tea wasn't so innocent, after all. Wallace is conked out, waking up to discover that he's Howard's captive and soon to be fitted for his own Walrus suit made out of human flesh. It just needs some alterations to fit a pencil neck like Wallace.

The first encounter between Howard and Wallace is disturbing in the way the best body horrors should be. We already know what's coming but the buildup is truly intense, helped by yet another phenomenally creepy performance by Parks. He worked wonders as the violently fundamentalist preacher in Smith's religious horror Red State, and he brings many of the same commanding qualities to Tusk. Smith has always had trouble editing down his scripts but being overly wordy is a benefit when Parks is regaling us with one wacky story after another. He's terrific here, making grounding Howard in reality by making him the twisted result of some terrible trauma, not just some freak with a fetish for animals. Strangely enough, the less of Justin Long you see the better he is. Maybe he should wear a walrus suit in all of his movies.

It's after we've seen Wallace in the suit that the film loses steam, as if Smith has totally shot his wad (he'll probably appreciate that turn of phrase) with the reveal. Basically it's a one trick walrus. From there it becomes a goofy, unfocused rescue mission as Wallace's longtime girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) teams up with Teddy and detective Guy Lapointe (better to leave whose playing him a secret) to find him. The introduction of Lapointe is a total disaster as it basically forces Smith to spend inordinate amounts of time with the huge star playing him. One can hardly blame him for that, but it would help if Lapointe was a character we could believe. Instead he's this total Pepe Le Pew stereotype, a cartoonish buffoon in a fake nose and accent. Whatever point Smith is trying to make about humans and their baser, animalistic urgings are lost every time Lapointe opens his mouth. Smith has never been the most visually inventive director but he was always able to get by because the script and characters are usually so endearing. That's certainly the case when Parks is doing his thing but the rest of the way it's not, and Smith's stagnant camera work becomes a real chore. It's also not clear what tone he's going for. Tusk is hardly gruesome in a Human Centipede sort of way, but it's not especially funny, either.

The first of a proposed trilogy, which unfortunately will include the Lapointe character in each, Tusk is undoubtedly Smith's strangest film in more ways than one. It's hard to tell exactly what he was going for. Was it just to do something different? There's no shame in that, but there's also something to be said for doing what one does best, and Tusk is not Smith at his best.

 Rating: 2.5 out of 5