Busjack

Yoshifumi Fukazawa’s bus hijacking movie could really have used Dennis Hopper and a few bombs

“This bus is … jacked.”

I’ve mentioned before in my reviews for Hitoshi Matsumoto’s films Spiral and Big Man Japan of my love of the Japanese variety show Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai ya Arehende!!, and how much of a joy it is to see the cast in various other projects. Naoki Tanaka, of the comedy duo Cocorico is also a very skilled dramatic actor, and has had the opportunity to show off a number of different movies. His comedy partner Shozo Endo, despite having appeared in a few films himself, does not share in this talent.

For a while, I didn’t think Busjack was a real film. The movie is showcased in an episode of Gaki, where his castmates relentlessly rip him a new one for his acting skills, his movie choices and his career as a whole. The clips we see look so amateurish and unreal that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was made for the purpose of that one episode.

But no, somehow Bus Jack is a real film. Endo plays Komiya, a down on his luck man who’s basically won Shit Day Bingo. His wife is gone, he’s been fired from his job, there’s a shadow on his lung and he has a relentless toothache. On his walk, he discovers a gun dropped by two gangsters, which leads a nearby coach driver (Mitsuhiro Fujiwara) to jump to the conclusion that he’s hijacking the bus. Komiya is somehow pushed onto the coach, and they take off, with Komiya unwittingly holding them all hostage.

The premise, I have to admit, is pretty damn good. The through-line has promise to be a comedy of errors, with plenty of misunderstandings and silly situations. Busjack does have this, technically, but it so often feels like it was made by a bunch of students with no time, budget and, crucially, who aren’t even attending film school. There’s very little information about the film and its production, so I have to judge it entirely on its own merits and by those standards, it’s fucking awful.

There are some decent jokes – there is some quality comedic talent at play here – but a lot of the script either doesn’t translate very well, or is simply not very good. Shozo Endo has often been mocked on Gaki for his attempts at being serious, be it politically, intellectually or otherwise and his acting makes a pretty bad case for the mockery to stop. His fellow actors don’t fare much better, though I have to single out Fujiwara’s bonkers bus driver as the highlight of the film.

There are plenty of other characters on board, and they’re all cookie cutter stereotypes. Imagine the sorts of people who get trapped together in the worst Stephen King mini-series and you’ve got a good idea of what to expect. No one is funny, no one has a real personality or storyline, and the film just sort of drives until it decides to make its plot about a little girl wanting to go to a hospital. About halfway through, we’re introduced to another character – because heaven knows we didn’t have enough unexplored personalities to deal with.

It doesn’t help that 90% of the film is set on one of the hardest environments in which to film. The bus does not offer much in the way of visual variety, and that does not help matters at all. Writer-director Yoshifumi Fukazawa has not directed before (or since), having worked mostly as an editor, and it shows. He struggles to utilise the space well. My partner said it looked like the start to a bad JAV, and it really does.

As a film, it’s not worth checking out, really. As a piece of weird Gaki-related art, it’s actually worth checking out, much like they did on the show. It’s terrible, and watching Endo seemingly channel Sho Aikawa throughout, and attempt moments of dramatic resonance does make for an entertaining 80 minutes. It certainly lets you appreciate his ho-ho-hoi routine more.

Verdict: Bafflingly unwatchable under most circumstances, Busjack is a film that only fans of Cocorico would find fun, and probably for the wrong reasons.

Overall entertainment: 3/10
Riffability: 7/10
Violence: 1/10
Sex:  0/10
Child deaths: Almost 1
Busjackers: There actually was one at least

Busjack (2014)
Also known as: バスジャック
Japanese

Director: Yoshifumi Fukazawa
Writers (this movie has two writers): Yoshifumi Fukazawa, Hidekatsu Takei

CAST

Shozo Endo – Komiya
Fujiwara Mitsuhiro – Bus driver
Hori Mayumi – Asami
Shimizu Kazuki – I think he was the cop?
Murata Mitsu – I think he was the other bus jacker