If you think this is an actioner or a martial arts flick based on the title, you're mistaken. Heck, it's hardly even a comedy.
For starters, GET BRUCE is a documentary. Moreover, it's about some guy named Bruce Vilanch.
Here's a few things one learns about this Mr. Vilanch from watching this movie: He has bushy hair -- a massive mop of curls. (Incidentally, he looks to me a bit like Michael Moore were Moore to don a Harpo Marx wig.) This Bruce character, we're informed, as a youth performed in school plays, later majored in theater and journalism, for a while wrote for a college paper, and eventually landed a job after college working for the Chicago Tribune. As a movie critic and columnist, part of his job involved interviewing celebrities. This bit of back story which the doc provides was most appreciated.
As I watched the mediocre GET BRUCE I began to think how relatively easy it must be to be a Hollywood actor. There's the screenwriter who tells the actor what to say and a director who tells the actor where to stand and what emotions he wants conveyed. The actor's clothes are provided for by those in wardrobe and any hair-styling and applying of makeup that is needed is done for them also. If they're feeling a little under the weather or camera-shy, there are understudies and stand-ins available for hire. (Question: Is there any individuality to these people or are they strictly stage pawns?) If they should win an award, and can't think of anything witty or funny to say, they hire ghostwriters like Bruce Vilanch to write their monologues or jokes for them. It's no surprise why a lot of everyday idolaters look up to these screen thespians for wisdom and advice, what with the latter being so three-dimensional, identifiable, and all.
It may come as a surprise to some, but Mr. Vilanch has written award show monologues and quips for actors you'd think would never be in need of a ventriloquist -- names including Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and even the hyperactive and mercurial Robin Williams. (So much for ad-libbing and improvisation.) During these award shows when the scripted one-liners are delivered by overall vacuous mouthpieces and often in stilted fashion, the audience is heard laughing, but now one has to wonder whether even this laughter is for real or merely the result of a generous yak track.
At the center of the borderline entertaining GET BRUCE is a supposed jokester but I didn't find this documentary all that amusing or interesting, however much it loves itself. Comedians tend to be scatterbrained and lacking in depth and as such their shtick becomes tiring after a while. Mr. Vilanch is quite likable and was at one time the go-to guy in Hollywood for actors and even comedians in desperate need of a wisecrack or zinger. Perhaps why I didn't like this movie as much as I should have is because I gave up watching award shows long ago. I love the cinema but could care less about the private lives of self-absorbed celebs and their insular, narcissistic ceremonies and events.
I did, however, manage to catch some clips of Hollywood outsider Ricky Gervais as candid host of a fairly recent awards show. Forget Vilanch. Gervais got to deliver the ultimate punchlines in his having held a verbal mirror up to his self-congratulatory audience. Ba-da-bump, ba-da-bump!
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