Big Bully (1996)

Director:

Steve Miner

Writer (WGA):

Mark Steven Johnson (written by)

Release Date:

26 January 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

A comedy for the kid in all of us.

Plot:

A writer returns to his hometown where he faces the childhood nemesis whose life he ultimately ruined, only the bully wants to relive their painful past by torturing him once again.

Plot Keywords:

Bully | School | Teaching | Reunion | Humor

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Rick Moranis	...	David Leary
Tom Arnold	...	Rosco Bigger (Fang)
Julianne Phillips	...	Victoria Tucker
Carol Kane	...	Faith Bigger
Jeffrey Tambor	...	Art Lundstrum
Curtis Armstrong	...	Clark
Faith Prince	...	Betty Lundstrum
Tony Pierce	...	Ulf
Don Knotts	...	Principal Kokelar
Blake Bashoff	...	Ben Leary
Cody McMains	...	Kirby
Harry Waters Jr.	...	Alan
Stuart Pankin	...	Gerry
Justin Jon Ross	...	Young David
Michael Zwiener	...	Young Fang

MPAA:

Rated PG for mean-spirited pranks, some crude humor and language.

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Alphacine)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Finland:K-10 (video premiere) | Norway:11 | Spain:7 | UK:12 (video premiere) | USA:PG (certificate #34058) | Iceland:L

Filming Locations:

Kitsilano Secondary School, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Lee Rich Productions

Trivia:

The librarian says that "Green Eggs And Ham" is 8862 days late, which is roughly 24 years and is more accurate than when David tells Victoria that he owes $6886.10 at 5¢ a day; that would be 137722 days or 377 years. He actually owes $443.10 at 5¢ a day (at that time).

Goofs:

Continuity: Kirby puts drops in his ear during class. There are four shots of him at his desk. In one of them, the bright green pen is missing from his desk.

Quotes:

Roscoe Bigger: Okay who did that? If I find out who did that, I'll...
Stookie: You'll what?
Roscoe Bigger: Um... Well we'll just see.

Movie Connections:

References "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." (1964)

Soundtrack:

(I Want To) Thank You

Damn good comedy!

Every so often Hollywood takes a serious theme like murder or bullying and tries to make light of it. When that attempt gropes toward the inner pain of dark comedy, the film may have merit. Yet when the focus is on cheap non laughs surrounded by a total disregard for substance, logic, and human decency, the result is most often a bloated, turgid mess like BIG BULLY.

Director Steven Miner wastes the limited talents of all concerned. Rick Moranis is a weedy, nerdy little man who has to relive the trauma of childhood bullying by beefy Tom Arnold. As the film opens, both Moranis and Arnold are in the fourth grade. Arnold plays a blubbery bully that one sometimes sees in a filmed version of a Steven King horror movie. But in the hands of a King based script, the bully is a source of unredeemed evil. Here, under Miner's unsure grasp, Arnold is no more than a walking tub of prepubescent lard who seeks to bully the nerdy Moranis. Now if Miner had tried to make a serious movie about childhood bullying, then BIG BULLY might have had something worthwhile to say about the angst of childhood insecurities.

Now flash forward twenty years. Moranis and Arnold are both teachers in the same grammar school, and Arnold quickly reverts to the bully that he was. What makes this regression reprehensible is Arnold's justification that as a victim, Moranis thoroughly deserved his fate. What then follows is a ridiculous chase scene between prey and predator that offers no lasting insight into either demented personality. Julianne Phillips is a wasted toss in as Moranis' girlfriend. At the end, when director Miner seeks closure, the film ends in the uneasiest of endings, one that satisfied neither the desire for revenge nor one that offers justification for that revenge in the first place.