Ol' Blue Eyes
02-03-2002, 20:12
I'm going to get a great night's sleep tonight after first having the crap scared out of me by The Mothman Prophecies and then seeing Bully, a truly shocking film about a real-life murder that took place in Florida in 1993. I haven't fully reviewed a film in years (I used to have my own site but gave it up due to lack of time) but once in a while a less-publicised film comes along that I want to encourage people to go and see so here goes...
Directed by Larry Clark (Kids, Another Day In Paradise), Bully (18) stars teen hunk Brad Renfro, almost unrecognisible here as Marty, a high school dropout and surfer dude who hangs out at the beach and picks up girls with his best friend, the much smarter Bobby (Nick Stahl). Bobby is the bully of the title, a truly nasty piece of work who uses Marty, even pimping him out to gay men and frequently beating him. When Bobby rapes Marty's new girlfriend Lisa (Rachel Miner), and later her best friend too, Lisa convinces Marty that it's time to stop putting up with the abuse and that the only way to get rid of Bobby is to kill him.
Now at this point in the movie, about half-way in, our sympathies are with Lisa and Marty. Bobby is so loathesome that Gandhi would want him dead and it would have been easy to make this a story about revenge like In The Bedroom. However, Larry Clark does a very clever thing - he essentially removes Bobby from the rest of the film. He pops up briefly in places but essentially the second half of the movie is about his friends and how they plan his murder. We meet more of Marty and Lisa's buddies - Lisa's worldly best friend Ali and her easy-going boyfriend Donnie, Ali's junkie pal Heather, overweight loser Derek and a self-assured delinqent who calls himself the Hitman and who everyone thinks is in the Mob. We also get to know Lisa and Marty better and learn that Marty is basically a spineless sheep and that Lisa is at least as much of a manipulator as Bobby.
I've known or met people similar to all of these characters and probably so have you. Clark makes none of them likeable but they're so real and so vividly observed that you watch in fascination (sometimes amused, often horrified) to see what they'll do next and whether they'll actually go through with Bobby's murder. What struck me most was their sheer lack of thought. Most murderers get caught not because of brilliant policework but because the killers make the same stupid mistakes these kids make. As appalling as their actions are, at times I wanted to shout advice at them!
Like Larry Clark's earlier film Kids, Bully has been criticised for exploitation. There's a lot of sex and nudity, male and female and it could be argued that much of it is not necessary and is actually distracting (there's a crotch shot in here that Paul Verhoeven would be proud of!). But what Clark is trying to do is to show how these kids' lives consist of aimless thrills and how homicide to them is just another thing to do to liven up the tedium, like playing Mortal Kombat or screwing or taking acid. The sobering captions at the end put events in perspective and make you wonder how many lives are destroyed so casually.
Bully is not a film for the prudish or the sensitive but it is a superb piece of film-making with some extraordinary performances that deserves a wider audience than it's going to get. It's an intelligent but accessible independent film that would entertain a discerning mainstream filmgoer who gave it a chance.
Directed by Larry Clark (Kids, Another Day In Paradise), Bully (18) stars teen hunk Brad Renfro, almost unrecognisible here as Marty, a high school dropout and surfer dude who hangs out at the beach and picks up girls with his best friend, the much smarter Bobby (Nick Stahl). Bobby is the bully of the title, a truly nasty piece of work who uses Marty, even pimping him out to gay men and frequently beating him. When Bobby rapes Marty's new girlfriend Lisa (Rachel Miner), and later her best friend too, Lisa convinces Marty that it's time to stop putting up with the abuse and that the only way to get rid of Bobby is to kill him.
Now at this point in the movie, about half-way in, our sympathies are with Lisa and Marty. Bobby is so loathesome that Gandhi would want him dead and it would have been easy to make this a story about revenge like In The Bedroom. However, Larry Clark does a very clever thing - he essentially removes Bobby from the rest of the film. He pops up briefly in places but essentially the second half of the movie is about his friends and how they plan his murder. We meet more of Marty and Lisa's buddies - Lisa's worldly best friend Ali and her easy-going boyfriend Donnie, Ali's junkie pal Heather, overweight loser Derek and a self-assured delinqent who calls himself the Hitman and who everyone thinks is in the Mob. We also get to know Lisa and Marty better and learn that Marty is basically a spineless sheep and that Lisa is at least as much of a manipulator as Bobby.
I've known or met people similar to all of these characters and probably so have you. Clark makes none of them likeable but they're so real and so vividly observed that you watch in fascination (sometimes amused, often horrified) to see what they'll do next and whether they'll actually go through with Bobby's murder. What struck me most was their sheer lack of thought. Most murderers get caught not because of brilliant policework but because the killers make the same stupid mistakes these kids make. As appalling as their actions are, at times I wanted to shout advice at them!
Like Larry Clark's earlier film Kids, Bully has been criticised for exploitation. There's a lot of sex and nudity, male and female and it could be argued that much of it is not necessary and is actually distracting (there's a crotch shot in here that Paul Verhoeven would be proud of!). But what Clark is trying to do is to show how these kids' lives consist of aimless thrills and how homicide to them is just another thing to do to liven up the tedium, like playing Mortal Kombat or screwing or taking acid. The sobering captions at the end put events in perspective and make you wonder how many lives are destroyed so casually.
Bully is not a film for the prudish or the sensitive but it is a superb piece of film-making with some extraordinary performances that deserves a wider audience than it's going to get. It's an intelligent but accessible independent film that would entertain a discerning mainstream filmgoer who gave it a chance.