Bullhead (2012)

This overheated yet bizarrely opaque criminal character study from Belgium is set among the "hormone mafia" — i.e., Flemish cattle farmers who fatten their cows with illegal drugs. Jacky (Matthias Schoenaerts), the tormented central goon, is a steroid addict himself, but even when we learn why (in a flashback so grisly it's nearly impossible to watch), we don't feel any more connected to him or to the turgidly convoluted plot. A nominee for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, Bullhead proves that you can make an underworld movie pumped up with pretension. C-