Bully (2001)

The movie is actually alright. But it is an EXTREME white trash movie. Everyone one is so ghetto and raunchy in the movie.

While working together in a Hollywood, Florida fast-food eatery, surfer dude Brad Renfro (as Marty Puccio) and his kinky companion Nick Stahl (as Bobby Kent) meet two prospective new girlfriends. They are sex-starved Rachel Miner (as Lisa Connelly) and her skanky companion Bijou Phillips (as Ali Willis). The four teenagers are quickly copulating in a car. You know something else is up when Mr. Stahl looks at Mr. Renfro instead of his sexy female partner. Stahl likes it rough, and digs gay sex while he's playing it straight. Stahl likes to beat up Renfro and force himself on young women. He's a real big "Bully". The main problem arises when Ms. Miner decides she really loves Renfro, who has been under Stahl's control since they were little kids. Miner figures she can only have Renfro if Stahl is out of the picture...With all the sex going on, you wonder why there wasn't room for one with Renfro and Stahl..."Bully" takes some time to figure out, unfortunately. Stahl's character must be gay or bisexual, as supposed in my short synopsis, above. In the actual film, this is far too subdued. This forces the viewer to waste time trying to determine what is controlling Renfro's character. Specifically, we wonder why he is bullied. There is no evidence of a cognitive problem (although he may have some learning disability). Since the film is "based on a true story," it's surprising that director Larry Clark does not elaborate or even fictionalize. Far from shy, he shows acres of young flesh. Renfro seems detached from his sketchy character. Blessed with the villain role, Stahl is quite convincing. Miner is believable. Led by "hitman" Leo Fitzpatrick, from Mr. Clark's superior "Kids" (1995), the supporting players impersonate their types exceptionally...Stay tuned, as after the credits, an update of the characters' fates are shown.******* Bully (2001-06-15) Larry Clark ~ Brad Renfro, Nick Stahl, Rachel Miner, Bijou Phillips

After seeing and enjoying Ken Park and Kids, I was definitely interested in giving this film a watch. Larry Clark has a unique directing style, which comes out well in Kids and Ken Park, but not so much Bully. The IMDb plot was very intriguing, it got a 7/10 so I was expecting a decent movie, but was unfortunately let down with this one. There are some major points where this movie fails, the main one being the acting, which I will talk about first.The acting in this film, for lack of a better word, is crap. I first noticed this, during a scene where a teenage girl just encounters some trauma, and goes to tell her friend about it, and is trying to hide the smirk on her face, and it's not believable at all. Stuff like this goes on throughout the whole film, it's just really unbelievable, which is weird, because I have seen a few of the actors in this, do very well in other films. This was the main failure of the film, the only character that was really believable to me was Bobby Kent, played by Nick Stahl.Now, this film had an interesting story, which apparently was based on a true story, while the film exaggerates some parts, as you would expect. The film fails to bring this story to life and make it believable, there are so many plot holes, and so many parts where you are asking yourself "Are a bunch of young adults really stupid enough, to do/say this s**t?". That is what was going on in my mind for half the film, also there seemed to be many points, where the same questions get asked and answered, over and over again.This is most of what I have to say about the film, but the last thing I have to mention, is a scene where they are talking in a circle, and to shoot it, someone just stands in the middle of the circle spinning the camera around. I have a feeling Larry Clark was trying to copy the scene at the beginning of Reservoir Dogs, but he failed here. It was just a pointless gimmick that was ultimately annoying, and I ended up skipping the scene, because it was making me feel sick, as the circle was much smaller then in Reservoir Dogs. I give props to Larry Clark for trying to make this story on film, but he didn't succeed in my eyes, and made a movie that I wouldn't say is worth anyone's time. This made me hesitant to check out his other films, and question the people who gave this film a high rating.

I can't believe there are people out there who believe this far fetched whopper of a story. Just because something says based on a true story, doesn't mean in this movie happened as portrayed. Try to useyour brain to process information people. With a little rationale one realizes that the movie is based on the defenses of the accused facing prison sentences. The only way out is to try and prove self defense. To have that many people involved and try to somehow say it was a self defense situation is the stretch of all stretches. All one can do is attempt to piece the way something like this could have played out, but if you even remotely believe this dude was murdered because he was this overwhelming bully is not only laughable, it defies everything known about human psychology. The dude's obviously not around to tell his side of the story. If all we know he was the one bullied or part of something gone wrong. All you could do is guess. The only thing we can be sure of, there's no way in hell the scenario played out like this movie portrays. Aside from that it's a somewhat entertaining movie.