Quite a film! Whilst not every action was true, the main parts were. Pretty sexually explicit, which may not be for everyone, I think I may have even watched a slightly cut version, this time viewing. That all helps build the picture of how the group were around each other and the build up to the 'plan'. Very much one of a kind, sexual, brutal and must have been one of Brad Renfro's last appearances on film.

Very disturbing all up. More disturbing than the murder itself, or the activities of the bully, was my knowledge that they were going to get caught for the murder well before the point in the storyline when they did it.How foolish and clumsy can you get? The 'hit-man' guy was also foolish to even get involved. He should have sensed that these fools were just that, fools, and had none to do with any of it!So frustrating to see such foolishness. That was the disturbing part. Well crafted tension all the way through, some documentary like moments. Well placed music, diegetic and not.Only found out it was a true story after the fact. Worth a watch to learn how not to do a murder !!

After seeing and enjoying Ken Park and Kids, I was definitely interested in giving this film a watch. Larry Clark has a unique directing style, which comes out well in Kids and Ken Park, but not so much Bully. The IMDb plot was very intriguing, it got a 7/10 so I was expecting a decent movie, but was unfortunately let down with this one. There are some major points where this movie fails, the main one being the acting, which I will talk about first.The acting in this film, for lack of a better word, is crap. I first noticed this, during a scene where a teenage girl just encounters some trauma, and goes to tell her friend about it, and is trying to hide the smirk on her face, and it's not believable at all. Stuff like this goes on throughout the whole film, it's just really unbelievable, which is weird, because I have seen a few of the actors in this, do very well in other films. This was the main failure of the film, the only character that was really believable to me was Bobby Kent, played by Nick Stahl.Now, this film had an interesting story, which apparently was based on a true story, while the film exaggerates some parts, as you would expect. The film fails to bring this story to life and make it believable, there are so many plot holes, and so many parts where you are asking yourself "Are a bunch of young adults really stupid enough, to do/say this s**t?". That is what was going on in my mind for half the film, also there seemed to be many points, where the same questions get asked and answered, over and over again.This is most of what I have to say about the film, but the last thing I have to mention, is a scene where they are talking in a circle, and to shoot it, someone just stands in the middle of the circle spinning the camera around. I have a feeling Larry Clark was trying to copy the scene at the beginning of Reservoir Dogs, but he failed here. It was just a pointless gimmick that was ultimately annoying, and I ended up skipping the scene, because it was making me feel sick, as the circle was much smaller then in Reservoir Dogs. I give props to Larry Clark for trying to make this story on film, but he didn't succeed in my eyes, and made a movie that I wouldn't say is worth anyone's time. This made me hesitant to check out his other films, and question the people who gave this film a high rating.

'Bully' gives the viewer an insight into a group of maddeningly awful young people. They communicate in ways that is an affront to the English language; their diction is an ugly mess of incessant swearing and pseudo-ebonics that's punctuated with an exasperating misuse of the word 'like'. Worse than their lexicon is their degenerative lifestyles – they're lazy, feckless, horribly ignorant and amoral. They've become so rotten, warped and stagnant whilst living in their scummy Floridian microcosm that they seemingly think their behaviour is acceptable. Well, they probably haven't considered what's acceptable or not as they don't *think* about anything. The film, which is based on the true story, starkly reminds the viewer that there are people out there who are this scuzzy and revolting.I wanted to hate the film because I hated every character, but the characters were clearly purposefully constructed to be that way. To hate the film for its ugliness could be deemed as missing the point, it's a depiction of extreme adolescent degeneration, I suppose it's something of a cautionary tale. Its chief success is how it portrays the ugly messiness of violence; it covers a spectrum of emotions from its characters during the visceral, realistically unpleasant climax, a scene that's very well constructed by the preceding twenty minutes or so.However, Larry Clark's trademark perversion is all over this film, paying gratuitous attention to the bodies and sex of the teenage cast. It's ultimately rather one- dimensional; its narrative of murder is captivating, but its study of reckless, idiotic culture is quite suffocating. Its absence of any somewhat relatable characters and presence of many detestable ones overshadows the film's acting and engaging murder plot.Although it does deserve a degree of commendation, there is ultimately little incentive to watch this film. 'Bully' is another lurid Larry Clark film that smacks of attention seeking.62%www.hawkensian.com