As an avid movie watcher, one hopes to see directors mature from project to project. I know that was the feeling I had when walking into Larry Clark's newest film, "Bully." I wanted to see Clark move beyond "KIDS," the 1995 film he directed, and make a movie that wasn't just some sorry excuse to show barely legal T and A every chance given. Unfortunately, not even a minute into "Bully," I knew that this wasn't going to be that film.
"Bully," based on the novel by Jim Schutze, takes a serious, real life story, and makes it the background to a film that simply shows Clark's obsession to parade around numerous teenaged characters so absorbed into the world of sex that they seem to be from a different planet. Sure there are people in America like them that society ignores thanks to teeny-bopper films that simply showcase virginal Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook look-a-likes, but Clark objectifies these characters so much that they lose any sense of seeming real to middle America's eyes.
In "Bully," Brad Renfro ("Apt Pupil") plays Marty Puccio, a troubled teen convinced by his girlfriend to kill his childhood bully, Bobby Kent (Nick Stahl). Instead of exploring Marty's background and the pain he has suffered in his life thanks to Bobby, screenwriters Zachary Long and Roger Pullis instead choose to have the character's first words being, "I want you to suck my dick. I want you to lick my balls" because THAT clues viewers into what would make this teen murder someone (note the sarcasm).
The film doesn't get much better from there. Instead, the opening line is almost a take-off point for what viewers are about to witness in the next hour. With the exception of a couple cheap punches by Bobby, the relationship between Marty and his bully take's a backseat to the sex and nudity on-screen. While viewers do need to meet Marty's girlfriend Lisa (Rachel Miner) and her best friend Ali (Bijou Phillips) since they play key parts in the film later on, we don't need to see them constantly screwing Marty and various other characters to get the point of the story.
Despite the fact that Clark uses almost a whole hour to introduce his main characters, hurried cuts within the film result in none of the relationships coming across as believable-- especially the main ones. Marty and Lisa are about as believable as a couple in love as Hilary and Bill Clinton. Not only is the beginning of their relationship portrayed literally as 'they meet, they screw, it's love!,' but their feelings towards one another are inconsistent throughout the film. For while in one scene we see Marty attempt to cheat on Lisa, in the next one we see him so in love that he's willing to kill for her.
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