Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Brilliant and touching

Admirable film.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

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 ****

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.

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.

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