Indie Feature Film Review: Tuck Bushman And The Legend Of Piddledown Moor

Written by Paul Cryer Sunday, 04 April 2010 14:16

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Tuck Bushman is a micro budget feature (made on £625 amazingly!) by the Leeds comedy group The Discount Comedy Checkout (Chris Lumb, Matthew Hick, Matt Jackson, Natalie Smeaton and Rob Girdler). Shot in and around Yorkshire with a lot of help from local communities, it tells the tale of disgraced Australian animal hunter, Tuck Bushman, who is looking to resurrect his career. Luckily for him, a locall town, the titular Piddledown, have a problem with a beast and the mayor calls in the help of people to track it down. Armed with a cameraman and his trusty rules, Bushman goes off in search of the beast, but is all as it seems?

The film starts off with a couple of nice little touches, I liked the fake certification, apparently the film is certified YF for Yak Fondling. Also up next is a pretty creative wall clippings credit sequence giving us the history of the shows start, Tuck Bushman, a gravelly voiced Aussie animal tracker whose luck with animals has recently been, shall we say, disastorous. Bushman is a sort of lunatic, alcoholic Steve Irwin, who takes the job of finding the beast to resurrect his career. While on the trail though he also bumps into his ex-girlfriend who is now the local park ranger.

There are some great characters in the movie, while I didn't quite warm to Bushman, his ex-girlfriend was a good counterpoint to his male bluntness. Al Sation, the agent made me alugh virtually everytime he was on screen, the band of hunters were really nicely made up of freeks and weirdos and the police duo introduced about two thirds of the way through looked superbly Miami Vice in their shades and long hair and were played up to every comedy sterotype you could eek out of it.

The humour won't be for everyone, but I enjoyed it. If I had to compare it, I'd say it had a very League Of Gentleman streak to it. There was a dark sense of humour, a small cast playing multiple people all of whom were a bit bizarre and weird. Even those character who you thought were normal turned out a bit bizarre, such as the cameraman who suddenly has a Spanish manservant!

'Tuck Bushman' shows a good deal of promise on a tiny budget. Most impressive was the fact it had a plot more coherant than many Hollywood comedies and some really good lines. It ran a number of plot arcs that came togther nicely at the end, even though I had guessed what was going on well before the relatively early reveal, it was good to see it played out and how the other threads were inteweaved with it, even leaving room for a bit of an open ending. A higher budget (or a budget full stop) and a bit more confidence in the direction and acting could see an even more improved second film.

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