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Bully

Play trailer Poster for Bully R,  2001,  1h 47m,  Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist 53% 86 Reviews Tomatometer 69% 10,000+ Ratings Popcornmeter
53% Tomatometer 86 Reviews 69% Popcornmeter 10,000+ Ratings
As Bobby Kent lay bleeding on July 14, 1993, he called out for help, and then mercy from his friends. Their response was quick and deliberate. Larry Clark's "Bully" chronicles the incident that would leave a community stunned, parents nonplussed and heartbroken and a group of defendants convicted of a brutal crime for which they never repented.
Bully

What to Know

Critics Consensus

With its lingering shots of naked teenage bodies, Bully feels more sordidly exploitative than realistic.

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Critics Reviews

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Tanner Tafelski Village Voice Oct 30, 2019
What Clark does suggest in this confrontational work is a cultural condition in American suburbia by which relations between parents and children are strained or even nonexistent. Go to Full Review
Tom Dawson BBC.com Feb 20, 2002
2/5
There's something troubling about a film which, on the one hand, wants to take a moral stance about a lost generation, and on the other relishes shooting the nubile flesh of its young actors. Go to Full Review
Loren King Boston Globe Sep 14, 2001
The moral wasteland of suburban youth has been examined, earlier and better, in The River's Edge. Clark's leering leads nowhere: In Bully, he has nothing new to say, and, in the end, no real point to make. Go to Full Review
Eric D. Snider EricDSnider.com Apr 14, 2012
B
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Audience Reviews

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Poe P Apr 18, 2019 Group of too old for school of thugs murder a young homosexual. Then spin the story that he was a bully to cover their crime and mitigate their sentences. The maker of this film seems to harbor guilt about his own latent feelings. Posit the "bully" was guilty of things claimed by this gang of drug addled miscreants. Nothing he did, warranted summary execution. This sounds like a Matthew Shepard-like scenario. It is a much more common occurrence than is widely thought. The movie seems to come to the defence of the murderers making them seem like the victims. The production is definitely told from a strictly heterosexual point of view as it glamourizes the conspiratorial murder of one gay miscreant by his "breeder friends" See more
Albus P Apr 6, 2019 This is my favorite movie. Incredibly intense, Brad Renfro's performance is astonishing. The whole cast is fantastic too, for that matter. Several graphic scenes that can be difficult to watch, but it is certainly worth it. See more
Hagrid W Sep 13, 2018 Bully is a film that walks a razor-thin line between gritty drama and sleazy exploitation. It's not a comfortable viewing. In fact, it may stay with you long after watching it because it is a very grim and frank study into the minds of troubled youth, empty existences with no future, living day to day by thriving only on vices and impulses, peer pressure, and the ugly truths about violence and vengeance. The story is inspired/loosely based on the real life 1993 murder of Bobby Kent by his friends because of the way he treats them. He is verbally abusive, physically abusive, exploits others for his own gain, and is also a rapist. Leading the charge is a girl named Lisa, the girlfriend of Bobby's longtime friend, Marty Puccio. Since Marty is unable to break away from Bobby, she comes up with the idea to kill Bobby, which slowly begins to snowball by recruiting other friends and a wannabe hitman. Egging each other on, they set their deadly plan into motion. None would do this by themselves, but with the peer pressure echo chamber enclosing them, anything becomes possible. Make no mistake, Bobby Kent is a vile bastard of a character - completely and utterly loathsome. However, his "friends" are not exactly winners, either. There's nobody you can call particularly likable, which will make this film a hard viewing for a lot people (People who pan a film solely because there are no likable characters...even if that was the point of the film). Sure, Bobby's done some vile things, but it seems that their actions aren't just revenge against him, but against society and how they feel their lives have turned out. He becomes the representation of all that they feel is wrong in their lives ("He's the source of everybody's problems," says Lisa at one point). I found the film to be a gripping, harrowing look into wasted lives, the ugliest aspects of peer pressure, and the grim nature of murder and the aftermath. Bully will also be an assault on your thoughts in other ways, with its unflinching depictions of graphic sex scenes and nudity (There's a crotch shot of the character Ali, that makes the famous Sharon Stone crotch shot in Basic Instinct look G-rated by comparison), abundant drug use, and visceral violence in more ways than one (Such as Marty's reaction to Ali saying she's pregnant and won't get an abortion, to which he grabs her so hard, he leaves bruises). It's an ugly and grim viewing, but a very visceral and engaging one nonetheless. It can rivet you, offend you, or you may find it to be trash masquerading as art. I think Bully is fantastic and Larry Clark's best film. See more
Poe W Jul 23, 2018 Larry Clark does it again with this powerful film.
Rey P Apr 9, 2017 A movie about really apathetic drugged out kids who think life is like a video game. Extremely well done by Clark. Scary and mesmerizing. Not for everyone though. Very dark and disturbing. See Brad Renfro and Michael Pitt in their first movies. Wonderful actors. One of my all time favorites. See more
Han W Mar 24, 2017 Brutal, Riveting and Disturbing. Man is it good though.
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Bully

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Movie Info

Synopsis As Bobby Kent lay bleeding on July 14, 1993, he called out for help, and then mercy from his friends. Their response was quick and deliberate. Larry Clark's "Bully" chronicles the incident that would leave a community stunned, parents nonplussed and heartbroken and a group of defendants convicted of a brutal crime for which they never repented.
Director
Larry Clark
Producer
Don Murphy, Chris Hanley, Fernando Sulichin
Screenwriter
Roger Pullis, Zachary Long, Jim Schutze
Distributor
Lionsgate Films
Production Co
Lions Gate Films
Rating
R (Language|Drug Use|Sexual Content|Strong Violence)
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Jul 13, 2001, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Oct 1, 2013
Box Office (Gross USA)
$510.1K
Runtime
1h 47m
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