At least that’s what this latest movie, (Bad Ass), starring Mexican hard man Danny Trejo should’ve been called, as it’s directly in reference to the Internet sensation who was labelled Epic Beard Man by the online community back in 2010.
Just like the plot of Bad Ass Tom Bruso rose to fame after he was caught on camera engaged in an altercation with an abusive, threatening passenger on a bus in Oakland, California. For obvious reasons he became popular, with many newspapers and radio stations eager to interview him about his new found YouTube fame. Of course there’s a tragic side to this story as Bruso is now a 64 year-old Vietnam war veteran who is homeless and suffers from mental health problems.
But that of course hasn’t stopped Hollywood exploiting the man’s story to make their own movie which they say is simply ‘inspired‘ by the whole Epic Beard Man story, even though they have Trejo dressed in exactly the same clothes from the infamous bus altercation video. We can only hope that at least a small fraction of the profits from this film go to Bruso. That being said it’ll probably make couch change at the box office because it looks bloody awful.
UPDATE: According to the film’s Wikipedia page it states: ‘The producers made a deal with Thomas Bruso to acquire rights before going into production.’ Of course details of that deal are not listed.
HMS Friday 