Mark Reviews Movies: TAURUS

Taurus, RLJE Films

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | November 17, 2022

There's a bit of controversy surrounding writer/director Tim Sutton's Taurus, which watches a music artist spiral into drug addiction and a temperamental emotional state. Maybe Sutton was inspired by a specific real person to create this fictional tale, which also leans heavily into the persona and music of its star Colson Baker, known by the stage name Machine Gun Kelly and credited as such for the film's original songs. The film is so broad in its observations and sadly universal about the effects of fame and addiction, though, that to try to make any kind of direct connection to a specific real-world figure might be missing the point.

The point is that Cole (Baker), who has risen to some level of fame as a rapper, is doomed—partly because of that fame, partly because of the kind of person he is, and mostly because the necessities, allure, temptations, and ego-swelling of fame won't allow Cole to become the kind of person he knows he should be. This character spends a good amount of this story in a drug-induced haze, in which he is only vaguely aware of his behavior and the way other people respond to it.

In one scene, Cole sneaks away into a bathroom to snort some cocaine, and he dreams of himself as a kind of stand-up comedian, telling the audience his thoughts but only getting a response when he lashes out in some way. It's true to a certain degree, if one of the film's final moments of a fan being elated that he has caught what might be Cole's final appearance on camera is any indication.

Sutton's story and Baker's performance, though, don't let the character off so easily, either. In its relaxed and mostly non-eventful way, this film does offer a bluntly and, on occasion, brutally honest depiction of a man who loses himself in what he believes people expect of him, until it's difficult to tell if there's anything else left of whoever he was.

The central relationship here is between Cole and his personal assistant Ilana (a great Maddie Hasson, balancing patience, frustration, and her character's own desperation to keep her job), whom he regularly takes for granted and insults—even though she's the only person who seems to care about keeping Cole in line and on schedule so that he can have a career. In between their arguments and his pathetic apologies after the fact, Cole repeatedly calls and depends upon different people, only to dismiss them without acknowledging that they even existed.

The story's first scene defines that. An aspiring singer named Lena (Naomi Wild) gets a phone call in the middle of the night, as she's relaxing in the tub, for a gig. It's to record the background vocals for Cole's newest song—one that he's composing sporadically but intensely throughout the film. In a quiet and thoughtful way, he offers the singer a bit of direction and seems happy with her performance.

Once he has what he needs from the woman, though, Cole just walks away, to go have that cocaine-fueled daydream in the bathroom, and lets an exhausted Ilana and the studio engineer thank Lena for her work and arrange for her transportation home. Sutton lets the camera stay with the singer on the way back, and her tears speak of just how deflating Cole's lack of awareness, concern, and gratitude can be.

The cycle continues. Cole tries to blow off his manager Ray (Scoot McNairy), and it's only when the guy speaks to the musician like a stubborn child in need of scolding that Cole acknowledges he has some professional responsibilities to which to attend. He has a daughter (played by Avery Tiiu Essex) with an ex-wife (played by Siri Miller), and whatever love he might have for the girl isn't readily apparent. The daughter has been visiting her father for the weekend, but while she stays alone in the guest house, he's off at the studio, doing drugs whenever he can, and lounging in the pool. She calls her dad by his first name, which comes as a surprise to him—even more so because the girl tells him that he's one who insisted she does so.

There's a lot more, of course—the way Cole chooses cocaine over the sex worker (played by Sara Silva) he called, an unheard fight-and-makeup with an unspecified woman played by Megan Fox, sneaking away from his duties to party with Bub (Ruby Rose), how he ruins a recording session by berating a delivery guy who just wants a picture and to hang out for a bit. Occasionally, Cole has some moments of as much clarity as he can have, such as a moment of too-deep personal realization in an interview and visiting the house of a young fan who, in the first scene, awakens in a bedroom with a poster of Cole on the wall and proceeds to shoot his parents. Those moments become more frequent and clearer as the story progresses for whatever they're worth—which isn't much, apparently and unfortunately for him and everyone who does care, despite everything he has and hasn't done for himself and others.

Much of this is repetitive, and in terms of characterization and story, Sutton's screenplay is fairly shallow. Both of those qualities aren't shortcomings within the contexts of the character Taurus is studying and the story it's telling. They're inescapable facts of Cole's existence.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products