Bullet in the Face: Stellar Cast and Performances Charm Their Way Through A Weird Show

I'm clearly not the audience for Bullet in the Face. In the abstract, I can see the humor (I did have a few big laughs, including one included in the trailer below)--and the cast is terrific, which makes the whole thing a bit more frustrating. But like its network partners Portlandia or The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, it feels more like something that should be enjoyable, rather than something enjoyable in and of itself. The show comes from Alan Spencer, also known for his work on the show Sledgehammer, and it's a black comedy. Like, really black. The premise is that a serial killer in a dystopian city takes a bullet to the head which destroys his face but leaves him alive. In the gunfight that led to his disfigurement, though, he kills a police officer and three months later he comes out of his coma to discover that he's been secretly kept alive and that the face of the officer he killed has been transplanted onto his skull. The killer, Gunter Vogler, is drafted into the service of the police, where he's forced to pose as the cop he killed and use his knowledge of the underworld to help them bring a pair of dueling crime bosses to justice. The premise itself is promising, but in execution it's just a bit too...zany?...for my taste. It doesn't take itself as seriously as something like Man Bites Dog, but that's the closest tonal comparison I can make. Part of what sold that film, though, is the fact that it was an absurd and shocking situation played straight. Bullet in the Face veers away from that from the word go. Everyone throughout the production is played as an insane person, and the performances are (intentionally) so over the top as to mimic soap opera, stage or silent film acting. Imagine the characters from Austin Powers superimposed over a world where there is death and blood and consequences, and one guy who has nervous breakdowns along the lines of Ray Wise from Twin Peaks.

In fact, here; take a look at one of Wise's less over-the-top breakdowns, followed by one from Assassin's Creed and Helix star Neil Napier, who plays Lieutenant Karl Hagerman in the series. In a twist on the standard "you killed my partner" angst, there's some definite homoerotic undertones in the series, implying that maybe Hagerman's most recent partner--whose face Vogler is "wearing"--was his (Hagerman's) lover. One thing that would likely stick out if this had been made on a more mainstream network show is that while they play with the hard-boiled detective story tropes, all the smokin' hot ladies in this show are older than I am. The sexy and pregnant Martine is played by Kate Kelton, 35, and Jessica Steen's police commissioner is nearly 50. In a youth-obsessed culture where most of the sitcom hotties are under 30 (at least at the start of their show), it's a refreshing enough change of pace to notice--especially when Steen steals nearly every scene she's in. Our audience might remember Kelton from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and Steen from Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. It's hard to get a bead on some of the performances, since they're all so over the top. Eric Roberts and Eddie Izzard, who play warring ganglords both having affairs with Vogler's pregnant girlfriend, are right at home here, both chewing on scenery as they're prone to do in anything. Izzard is about as over-the-top as you'll ever see him here, right up there with his turn in Mystery Men. That said, there's something really likable and magnetic about every actor in the series and even though the show itself wasn't for me, it sent me to IMDb repeatedly to see what else I could catch them in. The nice thing about the series, just released on DVD from Shout! Factory, is that its cult following shouldn't be disappointed by the very nice DVD package that IFC and Shout! put together in support of the series. It lasted only one series on IFC (back in 2012) and took a while to hit home video, but the disc that hit stores yesterday is bolstered by a commentary track by Spencer that talks a lot about process and shows an obvious love for his weird, little creation. It was a nice listen even for somebody who didn't fall immediately in love with the show. There aren't other features, sadly, and surely some die-hard fans would like to see more making-of and deleted scenes--but then again, it's an IFC original and was approached very much as a film-type series. It's not entirely clear how much cutting room footage there would even be of any value. All in all, it's a worthwhile buy if you liked the show, or think you might. Check out the trailer below. Buying just the episodes themselves off of Amazon or iTunes will run you at least $10 and the DVD is less than $20, so give it a try.