Wick's Review

Summary - Very Good 3.5

Artistic pranksters engaged in good old-fashioned anarchism make the Oscar nominated Exit Through the Gift Shop big fun. Just don’t judge its subjects too closely.

Banksy’s documentary chronicles street art’s commercial breakthrough, with the director himself its shining star. Anti-capitalism’s been very, very good to him.

The artist known as Mr. Brainwash is Banksy’s main subject, a hipster who sets out to be the movement’s videographer. Then the tables get turned in entertaining fashion, shining a light on the largely nocturnal activities of these cultural outlaws in the process.

Banksy and his confreres live to tweak the nose of the man: police, governments, celebrities, collectors, themselves when they become successful beyond their wildest dreams. They are devilishly clever at this, making the movie an entertaining romp, notwithstanding its slippery morality and puerile politics.

Exit Through the Gift Shop’s greatest success lies as cultural artifact, bringing to life a cutting-edge artistic movement in its first 15 minutes of fame. Watching it, one feels very of the moment.

Acting - Great 4.0

The movie documents a who’s who of street artists, each with the requisite juvenile politics, ironic sensibilities and deft design skills.

• Banksy’s genius for performance & art makes his nihilism easy to condone. Reliably mysterious, he appears in the movie shrouded in a hoodie, his face hidden in shadow, voice obscured. Yet his spirit along with that of his sometime videographer animates the proceedings. His site forms a portrait of the artist.
• Mr. Brainwash discovers his own genius, after a fashion. Originally a clothier to LA’s frivolous and hip, then a videographer of street artists, ultimately a successful pop artist in his own right, Mr. Brainwash is hard to dislike, even if Banksy – his enabler – forswears him. His very cool site is wonderfully Pavlovian.
• Shepard Fairey rocketed to fame with his Obama Hope poster, done in street art’s prototypical stenciled style. He comes across as the most grounded of the bunch, notwithstanding his renown and radical chic politics. His site is titled Obey Giant, of course. Let’s see: Obey Giant, Obey Obama. Fairey’s got a touch of the Orwellian in him.
• (Space) Invader places space invader pixelated characters on buildings, as you might expect from his name. Kinda endearing in practice. It’s claimed that he’s the cousin of Mr. Brainwash. Invader’s site
• Monsieur André has his stick-figure guy with an X for an eye, as seen on his site.
• Borf has perfected juvenile humor. But then, haven’t they all.

Film - Very Good 3.5

Machine-gunning a pseudo Paramount logo sets the slyly subversive tone the rest of film follows. See the trailer in the WikChip for evidence.

Edge - Tame 1.2

Reality - Glib 1.1

Mr. Brainwash comes under withering critical attack, most notably from Bansky, who says “Warhol repeated iconic images until they became meaningless, but there was still something iconic about them. Thierry (aka, Mr. Brainwash) really makes them meaningless.”

Yeah, maybe. But given our celebrity soaked society (Did you see Charlie Sheen’s latest?), Mr. Brainwash’s deft twists on the muse of pop notoriety has the spark of genius. For instance, his obese rendering of Ronald McDonald is a brilliant piece of pop art.

As for Banksy, he is perhaps too impressed with his own derring-do. Creating forged British currency featuring Princess Diana instead of Queen Elisabeth, great. Painting whimsical images on the security wall dividing Israeli and Palestinian territory, fresh. Fancying himself as having gone “in front of Israeli guns” to accomplish the feat: self-aggrandizing silliness.

If he wants to speak truth to repressive power, he should travel to Tehran. After all, he’s pranked Disneyland. Why not take his hijinks to Sharialand. Think they’d get the joke?

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