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[Short Reviews]

BULLY

Maybe Bully is Larry Clark’s way of taunting those who supported his first film, Kids, when it was attacked for being obscene, exploitative, and inept. Because his third film is all those things and less; it would be redeemable only if he intended it as grotesque self-parody. Based on the Jim Schutze book about an actual incident in South Florida in 1993, Bully returns to familiar Clark terrain, drug-addled teens with buff bodies and no wits or morals. Of the two pals Marty (Brad Renfro) and Bobby (Nick Stahl), it’s soon clear who’s got the title role; Marty is a verbal and physical punching bag for Bobby’s abuse and has been since they were tots. Enter Lisa (Rachel Miner), a waiflike Lady Macbeth who between sex scenes eggs Marty on to eliminate his tormentor — which, with a halfhearted posse of druggies, losers, and morons, he sets out to accomplish in a horrific scene reminiscent of Julius Caesar. But Shakespeare this is not. Unlike Tim Hunter in The River’s Edge or Joe Berlinger in Paradise Lost, Clark has only contempt for his victims. They are dumber than the kids in American Pie 2 and not as funny, and Clark is a lot more interested in shooting Bijou Phillips’s crotch and ass than in understanding their pain. Voyeuristic and dehumanizing, the biggest bully here is the filmmaker.

BY PETER KEOUGH

Issue Date: September 13 - 20, 2001





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