Tattoo (1981) Online

My trusty Video Movie Guide 2001 dubbed this 'the most vile, reprehensible, sexist, and misogynistic piece of tripe ever released under the guise of a mainstream film.' Naturally, I went out and rented it right away. Frankly, I don't understand what the fuzz is all about. It's just another character study, albeit not a very good one: given their respective situation, both the kidnapper and his victim exhibit rather unbelievable behaviour. There are hints of both 'Psycho' and 'The Collector', but 'Tattoo' lacks the tension of the first and the insight in character of the latter. I understand the ending caused quite some commotion in it's time: I thought this was the strongest scene in the whole film. I won't give the ending away, let me just say the scene was at the same time erotic and disturbing

I love Bruce Dern! The guy has appeared in some of my all time favourite exploitation movies ('The Wild Angels', 'The Trip', 'Psych-Out', 'The Cycle Savages', 'Bloody Mama'), usually playing some kinda evil or deranged character. He does it so well that you can forgive many people thinking he must be a bad ass in real life, when apparently he's a straight living health freak who indulges in marathon running. Anyway, he makes 'Tattoo' into a fascinating viewing experience. It isn't the greatest movie ever made, in fact it's quite a mundane thriller for the most part, but Dern makes it compelling with an intense and yet subtle performance. He plays a very odd tattoo artist who becomes obsessed with Maddy, a bitchy model (Maud Adams, Bond girl and 'Rollerball'). Now Maud Adams isn't really my cup of tea but she sure looks good in the nude scenes, and anyway, this is Dern's movie all the way. Most people seem down on this one, but I can't see why. I will say that the bigger the Dern fan you are the more you will enjoy it. I enjoyed it a LOT!

Tattoo is very beautiful and stylish looking, as is Maud Adams. Below the cinematographic beauty is a core of exploitation.

Maud Adams is not a great actress, but she and her breasts have wonderful personality which comes through on screen. Bruce Dern, a very good actor, lends gravity to his performance and does much more justice to the screenplay than it deserves.

The story of Tattoo is pretty silly, the screenplay amateurish and many scenes are poorly executed. But despite it's many faults, I found Tattoo genuinely engrossing. The film is a visual delight and the music score meshes very nicely.

Be warned that Tattoo is psychologically as well as physically exploitative so sensitives should steer clear, though really it's very mild compared with some more recent flicks.

If you're a hetero guy, you'll love it. 6/10

I watched this both as part of my ongoing Luis Bunuel retrospective (it was written by his daughter-in-law Joyce) and in tribute (comprising what are possibly his two oddest films) to star Bruce Dern's recent – belated but well-deserved - induction into the "Hollywood Walk Of Fame".

The film under review is a maligned one: often described as "sleazy melodrama", plotwise it is quite similar to the superior Oscar-nominated THE COLLECTOR (1965; a theatrical rendition of which, coincidentally, has just been staged locally) but, while kidnapping as an extension of butterfly-collecting makes sense, it doesn't follow naturally from tattoo-painting! Dern has often played wackos on the screen, but this rare leading role was certainly his most extreme example: he believes in what he does as if it were a religion and, after falling for model Maud Adams, tries to convert her to his way of thinking; his obsession with her leads him to ignore an attractive young employee of the modeling agency who, on the other hand, seems to be quietly infatuated with him.

However, the protagonist's overt prudishness – which, frankly, is laughable – alienates the model soon enough (even putting down an annoying acquaintance of hers in a restaurant with the classic tough-guy retort, "When I don't like someone, I don't hurt them, I kill them!"); eventually, the artist decides to take matters into his own hands: retreating to his old beachside house with the (unwilling) girl in tow, whom Dern keeps sedated until he is able to complete his ultimate achievement in body-painting. As often happens with this type of film, the victim ends up succumbing to her captor's wiles – in a genuinely weird scene as the undulating bodies are completely covered in Japanese art – before regaining her senses and breaking free definitively from his hold.

In conclusion, Bob Brooks' former career as a TV commercial director is evidenced by the plot's over-reliance on chintzy modeling sessions; it is ironic, then, that the film works best during its first half!

I think people are too hard on this film. It's one of my favourites. Maud Adams turned out to be a wonderful actress (have you noticed people seem to be nasty about models turned actresses if they're any good?). As for Bruce Dern.... WOW! He's great too! It's much like "The Collector" in the sense that he kidnaps her out of obsession, perhaps convincing himself it's love- being a lonely character in it.Don't be mislead, it's a good film. It's not perverted in anyway. It's known by people who've read about it that he tattoos her (probably how it gets it's title!), true, but people forget that she is attracted to the idea, denying it to herself though, which provokes his attack- probably. Well, that's my opinion and Maud Adams is my favourite actress. In my 'crazy' mind she's the best actress to have come from the James Bond films ("The Man With The Golden Gun" and "Octopussy", as Andrea Anders and Octopussy respectively). Try to watch and don't be led into thinking it's a 'sleazy' film because it's not. It's a marvellous film!!

"Tattoo" drew my attention purely by chance. I was reading up on some movies with similar plot involving psychotic love and abduction, and "Tattoo" just happened to be among them. I didn't know what to expect, but I was willing to check it out. Kind of a nice surprise, really, this movie is no deep character study, it's not terrifying, nor violent or brutal, it's just pretty good. Bruce Dern is a very good choice when it comes to roles of deeply disturbed characters, and he can do a good job showing all the layers that mentally unstable can be coated with. The anger, sympathy, obsession and violence are all within him, and Maude Adams is just along for the ride.

Two of them are fully compatible on screen and the movie is done by the numbers, the plot steadily flows and the story unfolds to the end, which I didn't think was right, at first, I expected something else, but the mixture of emotions within Maude Adams, should have produced the combination of love and hate that ended the movie. Worth seeing.

I had high hopes "Tattoo" would be a minor gem. The ingredients were there - Bruce Dern doing what he does best: playing a psycho, the superb Leonard Frey has a minor role, a script is by a Bunuel and the plot concerns the rarely explored world of tattoos. Yet what we get is soft porn, bad acting and a ridiculously pretentious ending. Okay, so Dern is great as the masturbating, obsessive tattoo artist but the casting of Maud Adams as the object of his obsession is incredibly off. Looking like someone who just crawled out of an airbrush-laden mid-seventies Playboy issue, Adams is about as attractive as drying paint, but not quite as talented.

The script is heavily misjudged also, constructed so we come to sympathize with Dern, yet halfway switches to having Adams the protagonist, which fails as attributed to her shallow and bitchy portrayal. And there is the film's major flaw, with no-one to sympathize with the film lacks the power and suspense it so desires. On the plus side it looks great, with wonderful cinematography which somehow even manages to evoke atmosphere from the proceedings on occasion. Also we get a cameo from a teenage Cynthia Nixon, Miranda from "Sex in the City", who impresses with what little screen time she has. "Tattoo" ends on a symbolic note which some may find profound, but most will see it for what it really is - turgid and pointless.

Rent "Magic" or "The Collector" instead.

One and a half out of four.

This story makes has me thinking what makes a man so twisted that he becomes deeply obsessed with the woman he loves the most. (Academy Award Nominee Bruce Dern) portrays Karl Kinski a tattoo artist who develops a twisted obsession for a model that he desires the most. Maud Adams (also known as one of the bond girls who was in both The Man with Golden Gun and Octopussy) portrays Maddy, the model that Karl desires the most. This has received a little bit of controversy surrounding the issue of the poster the shows a woman to her ankles. There was also another rumor if whether the sex scene between Maud Adams and Bruce Dern was either real or just an illusion. I don't know how to rate this film, but the point of this film was that it that there are crazed obsessives who lurk among us. To be honest this was a good film.

As a psychopathic tattoo artist, Bruce Dern has to work extra hard here, because the script is very sketchy as far as his motivations and background are concerned, but he is up to the task - he has some very creepy moments (like his first outburst at a dinner table). As his "object of desire", however, Maud Adams is fatally miscast: the way she plays the model in the first half of the movie, you just can't understand why anyone would become infatuated with her. This strange film might be worth a look if you can find it, but don't expect too much. (**)

Bruce Dern is something of an expert at playing psychotics, so it is hardly surprising to find him in this sleazy psychological thriller. Dern's deranged performance is weirdly fascinating but does not alone make the film an enjoyable viewing experience. Much more out-of-place is former model and Bond girl Maud Adams, whose non-performance in Tattoo is desperately embarrassing to watch, and fails to add credibility to the notion that Dern's tattooist could ever fall completely and obsessively in love with her.

New York tattoo enthusiast Karl Kinsky (Bruce Dern) is hired to apply some fake tattoos to a bunch of sexy female models promoting a new line in swimwear. During the photographic shoots, Karl meets international super-model Maddy (Maud Adams), a beautiful but married woman with whom he is quickly smitten. Karl's only reservation about Maddy is that she is not particularly interested in tattoos, but in his twisted mind he thinks that he can change her views on the subject and ultimately force her to love him. A mentally confused loner whose father owns a secluded beachside cottage, Karl decides to take desperate measures to get through to Maddy. He drugs her, kidnaps her and takes her away to the cottage. Here, while she is almost utterly at his mercy, he lovingly tattoos her previously unblemished skin. When Maddy awakens and discovers what he has done to her, she is horrified. Over time, the weird psychological relationship between the tattooist and his prisoner grows stranger and stranger, culminating in a frenzied climax during which the victim stabs her kidnapper during sex….

I half-expected Tattoo to emerge a morbidly interesting little film. The plot, while certainly unpleasant and disturbing, has the potential to build up to some interesting psychoanalysis and scenes of suspense. Sadly, very little of the potential is fulfilled. Things move along drearily and unconvincingly, with too many poorly written and poorly executed scenes. The very concept of a tattooist inking someone against their will is quite frightening, but here the pretentious approach virtually wrecks the film. Adams plays the victim-character as such a crashing bore that it's impossible to believe that anyone could desire her vehemently enough to stalk her. This makes Kinsky's decision to kidnap, tattoo and rape her totally unbelievable, which in turn undermines the entire point of the film. The bizarre and violent ending is unsatisfying, though in some ways tastelessly memorable. Tattoo is probably the kind of film that has a dedicated cult following somewhere in the world. 99% of viewers, however, will come away from the film feeling dirty, depressed and disappointed.

A film that relies solely on the crazed screen persona of Bruce Dern. Here Dern is a tattoo artist obsessed with model Maud Adams. He decides to kidnap her and "mark" her, thus making her his and available for sex. This is a lousy film with absolutely nothing going for it. Director Bob Brooks creates no suspense, no intrigue and no action. It's just dull. The screenplay is by Joyce Buñuel (daughter-in-law of Luis) and there's not a single trace of wit or creativity to be found. The conclusion is essentially told to you mid-way through the film. The acting is pretty bad. Dern is Dern (and appears a bit bored) and Adams, though stunning, is not an actress. She's brave to have appeared in this film and it's unfortunate that it's not a better movie. Brief appearances by the reliable Leonard Frey and John Getz add a little color, but not much.

Karl Kinsky is an army veteran who returns home, becoming a tattoo artist specializing in Eastern designs. He's a quiet and solemn individual, who had somewhat a bumpy upbringing with a father who looks down upon him and still does because of his profession. He is hired to create temporary tattoos for some models, but he slowly becomes obsessed with one of them Maddy. He begins a relationship with her, for it only to implode due his prudish believes and constant harassment. But he takes matters into his own hands when he kidnaps her and decides he wants to leave his mark on her.

"Tattoo" is a fascinating early eighties psychological slow-burner with an outstanding lead showing by Bruce Dern. It can be said, in his career Dern has been lumped in villainous / unlikable roles, but here it's a perfectly disturbed pitch of subtle and mannered shades. Across from him is the beautiful and headstrong Maud Adams, as the leering affection that Dern's character longs for. The script paints Kinksy as someone who knows what he wants, but wants it to be pure which leads to misconception and Dern's performance nails his character's insecure nature, as cracks start appearing showing an unsettling side. That being, the film progression is not unique, but quite routine and sombre. I think it works better in the opening stages setting up the characters, then so during the captive moments of the story. This is when it kind of stalls, but still visually it ends on an effective note. You'll know where it heads, but it's the acting, gritty urban locations (which also paint a desolate and lonely facade) and vivid tattoo artwork designs (and their meanings) on show that evaluate the formulaic plot. Bob Brooks' measured direction is efficient and busy, but its Dern's show. Also there's capable support by Rikke Borge, Leonard Frey and John Getz.

The following review contains a few spoilers.Tattoo is a little out of distressed heroins, and the book of the collector. A man becomes obsessed with a woman after painting fake tattoos on her body. ,he kidnaps her and gives her real tattoos all over her body. Very good acting the plot and script could have been better but overall not a bad watch In that he only draws gives her tattoos on her body and does nothing else to her. PG13 erotic no hardcore sex scenes. A few erotic scenes and Maud Adams does walks around in the nude for a little while. If you like erotic kinky movie with damsels in distress than this movie is worth watching. The only DVD version is Pal 2 so you have to watch it on a computer. I think they should do a remake, with a better script. If done right it can be an erotic thriller, maybe straight to DVD, because it won't be everyones cup of tea.

I've watched this movie three times and find it to be a quite extraordinary; an homage, with a twist, to Beauty and the Beast perhaps? Whilst I can understand the distaste of some reviewers for the subject matter it was, for me, both very well executed and engrossing and I thought that both leading characters played their respective roles very well. Reviewing a movie such as this is complicated. The fact that it elicited such visceral reactions is, in my view, a tribute to its success in deeply involving the viewer in the story-line. How one reacts to that involvement is, of course, a purely personal response; but shouldn't the review of a movie reflect the extent to which it involves its audience, for better or for worse rather than the subject matter?

Extremely seamy psychological drama with a thriller-movie undermining which never quite comes to the surface. Tattoo artist, covered with ink himself, kidnaps a fashion model and begins plying his trade on her unmarked flesh. Combines "Lipstick" with half-a-dozen pictures in which Bruce Dern does his bug-eyed routine (a yawner even in 1981). Supporting cast is unusually strong, with Leonard Frey, John Getz, Jane Hoffman, and Cynthia Nixon in smaller roles. As the model, Maud Adams flashes the requisite amount of skin, yet the role itself is unattractive and it failed to give the real-life fashion star that added boost as an actress. Arty cinematography attempts to turn the sleazy milieu into a smoky, seductive modern noir; but, with such vapid characters out front, one loses interest long before the film has finished. *1/2 from ****

It's movies like this that give tattoos and tattoo artists a bad name. I know a lot of people in the tattoo community and I don't know a single one who would tattoo someone against their will. Bruce Dern deserved the Razzi for this piece of poor filmmaking....