Ryan Harris, an auteur of the gross, includes sight gags like puppies in blenders in this tedious action comedy.
“Ninja Badass,” a crude, abrasive action-comedy about an Indiana hillbilly training to become a superpowered martial artist, is the product of one peculiar mind. Ryan Harrison is the writer, director, co-producer, editor and star of “Ninja Badass”; he even created its cheap but plentiful visual effects.
Self-financed, and more than a decade in the making, the film is clearly a labor of love, realized in the raucous guerrilla-cinema tradition of Robert Rodriguez’s classic indie shoot-em-up debut “El Mariachi.” But without collaborators to push back against his instincts or question his ideas — the only other credited producer is his mother — Harrison’s vision reigns unchecked, to ends both excessive and self-indulgent. The result is a 103-minute vanity project I found utterly exhausting.
Harrison plays Rex, a coarse, ill-mannered layabout with a bleach-blond bouffant hairdo. Attacked during a visit to a pet store by Big Twitty (Darrell Francis), the lunatic leader of the cultlike group Ninja VIP Super Club, Rex resolves to learn the ninja arts and seek violent retribution. Shot in the manic, off-the-cuff style of “Crank,” the action that follows is lurid and over the top, with lots of graphic lacerations relished for their comic shock value. Harrison favors a few gory sight gags, like an arm being ripped out of its socket or a puppy being shoved into a blender, and repeats them frequently, to what would be diminishing results if the jokes were funny to begin with. You get the feeling the film is daring you to wince or take offense, but for the most part, its tasteless provocations are simply tedious.
Ninja Badass
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
