I went to a screening of Big Shark with Tommy Wiseau so you don't have to

By David Hydell

I’m going to start this review on a controversial note; The Room is the best movie ever made. To capture such a bizarrely warped interpretation of the human experience on film is as strong a justification for the art of cinema as anything Scorsese or Godard ever produced.

Despite my love of The Room, when I heard about Tommy Wiseau’s new movie, Big Shark, I must admit I was dubious. The Room fails in every way as an emotionally-wrought melodrama. The misjudged sincerity and Tommy’s belligerent belief in his own vision make The Room such a uniquely endearing movie. Tommy inadvertently created a comedic masterpiece; could he succeed in deliberately making another ‘so bad it’s good’ classic? Or would his new movie just be ‘bad?’

Fucking around and finding out

Well, what better way to find out than to attend a screening of the film with the man himself in attendance. The screening was at the Prince Charles Cinema, a former porn cinema just off Leicester Square in London’s West End. This independent cinema is a spiritual home for film fans in the UK, and renowned for it’s quirky, grindhouse-inspired programming – Last year they held a screening of the notorious scatological horror Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom on the day of their namesake’s Coronation. Its dark, subterranean foyer is the perfect home for a man who may actually be a vampire.

Tommy Wiseau stands encased in a Perspex cage, insisting you buy his merch, which includes Tommy Wiseau branded underwear, before mere mortals can approach for a selfie. The man is pouting like James Dean, wearing sunglasses (despite us being underground), a shirt and tie, blue jeans, and three belts. In short, he looks just as bizarre as I imagined he would.

The event kicked off with a Q&A which panned out exactly as bizarrely as you would expect from this man. Where did he come from? Where does he get all this money? Nobody knows, but what we do know is that if you ask him a normal question, he will give you a batshit answer. I asked him for any tips on how to direct sex scenes. He began by correcting my language (“we call them love scenes”) before answering, very simply, “you just keep going, man.” What pearls of wisdom he possesses.

Having been sufficiently entertained by his increasingly nonsensical answers, the auditorium settled down expectantly as the opening credits for Big Shark rolled.

Sharkmin

Well, Big Shark is certainly the dumbest movie I have ever seen. The plot follows three firefighters that have been tasked with stopping a killer shark from terrorising New Orleans. Pretty standard action movie stuff, right?

However, Tommy’s approach to storytelling is to ignore all the rules on how to tell a story. So much of the movie is spent on side quests, performing shark killing admin. Picking up supplies, doing all the boring stuff that a normal movie would skip over. When not performing 'Shark-min', the characters hang around in bars playing pool, talking garbage, breaking in to impromptu musical numbers, rather than stopping the giant shark! This is especially infuriating, as all the dialogue is improvised, and Tommy clearly doesn’t want to cut this improv ‘Gold’. There are whole scenes where nothing happens. Phenomenal filmmaking.

Sharkwarp  

When Tommy does bother to advance the plot, it goes in circles. The character put on scuba gear and get in the bayou to hunt down Big Shark. Several scenes later; the characters put on scuba gear and get in the bayou to hunt down Big Shark. Tommy even employs an old trick from The Room and reuses the same footage (unnecessary second sex scene, anyone?). I became worried I was stuck in a time loop, and that this movie would never end.

There is so much weird shit in this movie. The Big Shark itself might be the least convincing cinematic shark since Jaws. The female roles are misogynistic shells of characters. And Tommy Wiseau provides an acting masterclass that has to be seen to be believed.

So is Big Shark destined to be another cult classic? Perhaps? It doesn’t have the same warped genius as The Room but it's certainly entertaining to watch with a crowd of people who are willing to relentlessly take the piss out of it.

If nothing else, it shows that Tommy Wiseau is still able to put out films that are unlike anything else out there.