Bully Review

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*** stars

Sunday August 12, 2001

Larry Clark is a director that admire because of the film Kids. When I first saw Kids, I just finished hearing about Bully being release into theaters in less than a month. Kids is a film that shocked me in two ways; one, it captured teenage life in the 90’s so well that I kind of denied it to my self. It is a very disturbing movie and was far too strong for an R-rating. The day after watching the film for the first time, I saw it again. I listened to the dialogue a little closer and paid more attention. After finishing it, again, hearing that final line made by “Casper”, “What happened?” I knew that it had become a favorite, independent film of mine. I thought the teenage cast did great jobs, especially Chloe Sevigny (Boys Don’t Cry) who plays a young teenager, maybe 16, who has only had sex once before and gets infected with HIV positive. Her character is surprisingly strong but loses control towards the end with a shocking climax. I think Chloe Sevigny is a very talented young actress and I loved her in American Psycho, she has something going for her.

Now, let’s talk about Bully. Bully is a true story about seven Broward County kids who lured one of their friends, Bobby Kent, into a deserted rock pit near Weston and brutally murdered him. After the horrific incident, the seven teenagers were sentenced to prison and claimed that Bobby Kent was a bully. This film is very tough to sit through and has very disturbing scenes dealing with rape, drugs and even friendship. Larry Clark knew exactly what he wanted to do with the cast and the script when he was offered the story. The cast in this film does a fine job but there are some scenes where the actors over play their roles like the young Rachel Miner. Miner plays the Lisa Connelly, the girlfriend of Marty Puccio (Brad Renfro). In the film she seems very ignorant and she finds herself confused most of the time. One of the best or the best performance of the film was Brad Renfro. In previous films, he seemed to be playing the same characters such as in Sleepers and Apt Pupil. In this film he plays a small-minded teenager, like all the other characters. They have no aspirations or goals and it seems that even at some points of the film, the characters have no reason for existence. Nick Stahl plays the character of Bobby Kent (Disturbing Behavior). The characters are aimless but that got me closer to the film. The plot builds when the seven friends decide to take the life of Bobby Kent and decide they should hire a “hit man”. This turns out to be Leo Fitzpatrick (who played “Telly” in Kids), in the film his character’s qualifications come from the reputation of his family being in the “Mafia”.

The details of the murder are observed in a scene of agonizing, gory depression. The traumatic scene shows the reality of killing a human being. Once the body is disposed of, the arguments begin almost immediately: the overwhelming desire of telling strangers about the crime, the guilt of who actually led the crime, and who delivered the fatal strike. In this film, we see the characters in the same image as we saw them in Kids; they all carry the same future, purpose, and life style. The film is one of a kind and shows teens with no imagination at its best. -