Bully

Raw, realistic, deeply disturbing and haunting film about a group of recently graduated high school kids whose lives are aimless and empty. With nothing better to do, they get together to plot the murder of their mean best friend (Nick Stahl), who was the only one bound for college and to make something of himself. With none of your usual Hollywood gloss and a well selected cast (especially Stahl in a creepy performance), this film has many powerful moments and completely draws you into it's story. Shockingly enough, based on a true story.

Unrated; Strong Sexual Content, Graphic Violence, Profanity, and Nudity.

Marty and Bobby are friends who work together, drink together, pick up girls together and hustle together. The dynamics of their friendship is not that straightforward though as Bobby is by far the dominant one and thinks nothing of demeaning and bullying Marty and having fun exploiting anyone he sees as below him. While highschool drop out Marty gets Lisa pregnant, Bobby's future looks good with college and his father's support ahead of him – all this despite raping Lisa's friend Ali. When enough is enough Bobby's friends decide to kill him.

I'm not sure what it is about Larry Clark and teenage sex and nudity but he does seem to have made it a career motif – sometimes to good effect (Kids) and sometimes in a way that is exploitative and nasty (the horrid Teenage Caveman springs to mind). However with good reviews I figured that perhaps Bully would be able to have the sexual material within a context. The result here is a rather mixed approach where the true story does necessitate the depiction of teen sex and drug use however Clark does push this more than he really needs to with shots of nude girls on the toilet, graphic drug use and one or two "upskirt" shots of girls' underwear that a gonzo pornographer would have been proud of. Fortunately his subject is good enough to prevent it become shocking for shocking's sake. The narrative is interesting because of it being true but it didn't develop the characters well enough to make this as fascinating as it should have been. Instead of doing this for the first half, we instead just see lots of actions (nudity, fighting, drugs) which fills the time but is not the same as writing good characters. The overuse of nudity in this part is excessive and rather tiring and I did start to feel that Clark maybe doesn't understand his characters but he does know from the reports what they did, so this is what show.

The part of the film that occurs after the murder is much more interesting and convincing and this helps cover the weaknesses of the first part. For all Clark's excesses in his films he does know how to draw good performances from his young casts. Stahl is impressive in the lead and does the best he can with his character producing some nice contradictions within this boy – shame that Clark isn't that interested in this. Renfro is not quite as convincing a person although he does work well as the slightly weak-willed loser. Phillips is better while Miner is a straightforward character – with both of them I felt a bit uncomfortable watching them be naked so often as they were. The rest of the cast are all as realistic and natural and, although they come over as stoned out losers and the dregs of youth culture but then that was the point I suppose.

Overall then an impacting film but nowhere near as insightful or as important as it should have been. Instead of delving into the subject, Clark is happy to just show us how they lived – with lots of sex and drug use, which was necessary to a point but shouldn't have been allowed to be as much of the show as it was. Worth a look for those used to Clark's approach but not as good as it should have been.

I just watched this movie, and I found it interesting and compelling enough to check the IMDb site. I have always found Larry Clarks movies captivating, and this one was no exception. However when i was reading through the reviews I saw people constantly referring to the teens lives as "empty and meaningless", using their pot smoking and sex as examples.

This completely defeats the purpose of Larry Clarks films as I (as a teen) interpret them. These movies don't show "those" rotten kids hanging out on the street corners. They depict YOUR kids in a way you never want to see them. Thats why his movies are so powerful, because they show a reality few people want to admit exists. This movie, and Kids should be standard viewing for parents and teens alike. So parents realize what their kids are getting up to and so teens realize what can come of their actions.

I watched this movie five days ago and I'm still affected by it. Afterwards all I could do was cry for the youth of America, because this isn't just some movie. It really, truly happened. The actors turn in outstanding performances as teenagers with nothing to do but turn to sex and drugs to fill the empty voids in their lives. Nick Stahl is particularly amazing as Bobby, the boarder-line psychotic who tormented his friends until they could take it no more.This is a sad, realistic look at how many teenagers really do act with their peers. Don't look for your typical teenager fare here because you won't find it. The language, sex, and drug use may bother some people, but thats because no one wants to believe that young adults can be this way. Well, I got out of high school two years ago and I can tell you that this is not far from reality. Thats probably why it has affected me so much...because I know that stuff portrayed in this movie really does happen. This is a great movie. Watch it. Then go tell your kids you love them.

It seems that the reviews of this movie are rather bleak because people say that the director focused too much on sex and that this was not a realistic picture for teens. I watched the movie, and read the book, and I have another reference source- my mother was a juror for the court case State of Florida Vs. Ali Willis and Donny Semenec. She was sequestered for over a month and was told every piece of information about these two teenagers and their friends.

This sex/drug filled movie is a spot-on represenation of these kid's sad life. They had no future, no regrets, didn't go to school and yes, they had sex with each other a lot. From what my mother says, if you were to make a movie about them accurately, it would have to be close to 75% sex. The bully was bi-sexual and would force his best friend to have sex with him after he had raped his girlfriend. These kids were also not poor white trash, as their parents were very wealthy, and they drove nice cars.

I think the fact is some people cannot stomach the idea of these kids being real, so they blame the director for not interpreting the story correctly. This is a story of middle- upper class kids, kids like your sons and daughters.

I thought this movie was very good. 7.5/10