SnoopyStyle
Marty Puccio (Brad Renfro) is a life long friend to Bobby Kent (Nick Stahl). The problem is that Bobby is a violent bully who is obsessed with gay porn and uses it to dominate his friends. Marty has sex with Lisa Connelly (Rachel Miner) but Bobby beats him unconscious. Lisa discovers she's pregnant and convinces Marty to take out Bobby. She starts recruits her friends Ali Willis (Bijou Phillips), Donny Semenec (Michael Pitt), Heather Swallers (Kelli Garner) and her cousin Derek (Daniel Franzese). The incompetent teens can't get up the courage and decide to get 'hitman' Derek Kaufman (Leo Fitzpatrick) to help.This tale of disenfranchised youth is quite compelling. The young cast is haunting. Renfro, Miner and Stahl are perfect at being these kids who are spending all their time drinking, smoking and going nowhere. This is very much like River's Edge. Director Larry Clark, who directed Kids, is leering a lot at the young people's bodies. The meandering plot and the aimless teens keep the tension not that high. There are some interesting work from the actors.
powermandan
Bully is based on the real life murder of Bobby Kent in 1993. Iconic Brad Renfro leads a cast of young upstarts in a movie that (I'm sure) does justice to the real case. If not, and the movie was changed for dramatic purposes, it was changed perfectly. Despite there being great acting by a great cast, the violence is gory and there's lots of explicit sex. So I recommend watching this alone. Not with a group, not with one boy or one girl, alone. Trust me on this.Brad Renfro plays Marty Puccio and Nick Stahl plays Bobby Kent. Marty and Bobby has been best friends since they were children, but Bobby has always mistreated Marty. Bobby has mistreated everybody in very disgusting ways that's all shown. Everybody gets fed-up with Bobby and all plan to kill him, with Mary being the most motivated.Renfro stated that Bully was his favourite movie of his. I must agree that it is his best he was in and the best he's acted in. So there's lots of sex among other things that make for an interesting viewing, but for a dark teenage crime-drama, it is a slam-dunk! As you might have guessed, Brad Renfro is the best in this and Nick Stahl is right behind him. There was something so awesome about Renfro in this that made his portrayal so sick and made me shake. That's right, Renfro did such a good job in this that he made me shake. Nobody else has ever done that to me.
nlytnd_1
I can't believe there are people out there who believe this far fetched whopper of a story. Just because something says based on a true story, doesn't mean in this movie happened as portrayed. Try to useyour brain to process information people. With a little rationale one realizes that the movie is based on the defenses of the accused facing prison sentences. The only way out is to try and prove self defense. To have that many people involved and try to somehow say it was a self defense situation is the stretch of all stretches. All one can do is attempt to piece the way something like this could have played out, but if you even remotely believe this dude was murdered because he was this overwhelming bully is not only laughable, it defies everything known about human psychology. The dude's obviously not around to tell his side of the story. If all we know he was the one bullied or part of something gone wrong. All you could do is guess. The only thing we can be sure of, there's no way in hell the scenario played out like this movie portrays. Aside from that it's a somewhat entertaining movie.
darkplague2010
This story is sad for a variety of reasons. Marty & Bobby grew up together & were supposed "best friends", but Bobby was a HUGE bully & bullied Marty terribly for years. I watched both the movie & the documentary, as well as reading the book. This movie is a raw, in your face look at the epidemic of bullying & what could happen when this bullying goes too far. I'm not condoning what these kids did by any means, but I found it ironic that Bobby's family thought their son was "too good" for Marty, when in reality, it was THEIR son who was the problem. I was disgusted when, in the documentary, Lisa acts like she was "so scared" (even going so far as to keep her face shadowed), when SHE was the catalyst behind this entire plot to kill Bobby. Not only was she the one who brought up the solution of killing Bobby to Marty, but also was the only one who knew Derek the self-proclaimed gang member (he was so NOT one & even his little brothers laughed at that). After the murder, Lisa bragged to anyone who would listen about what MARTY did, never once putting any of the blame on herself. She even dragged her naive cousin, Derek, who really wanted nothing to do with this whole thing, (he was content playing video games & told Lisa he didn't want any part of it). Ironically, Derek (cousin) was pretty much bullied himself into participating. In the documentary, Allie makes herself out to be a whole lot more innocent than she really was. She was was a spoiled girl with a new Mustang, a baby that her parents took care of & would be considered "loose" as far as boys & sex was concerned. She had no problem going to Marty's house & taking Bobby right into the bedroom the first time she ever met him. Heather was the sad, train wreck of the group. She had a miserable life in a violent family. Donnie was nothing more than a hanger-on who was pretty much up for anything & very much a follower, as well as completely under Allie's "sex spell". Derek, (wannabe "gangster"), portrayed himself as a "thug", so when these kids came to him for help with their scheme, he had to take the role as leader. If he didn't, he would be exposed & everyone would see him for the nobody he really was instead of a "gangster". As much as I would like to, I can't feel very much sympathy for Bobby Kent. True, nobody should die like that, but in addition to his appalling every day treatment of Marty, he degraded females, calling them the "b word" & "w word" (no profanity can be used in a review) & used them for rough sex even if they didn't want to. Bobby had no problem humiliating Marty in public & in private, both verbally & physically. Notice that Bobby was much bigger & stronger than the slightly built Marty. Would this have happened without the coercing of Lisa? Maybe. Marty had never stuck up for himself throughout his entire life when it came to Bobby Kent, so I doubt that he ever would have. After Lisa relentlessly keeps the pressure on Marty that the only way to "get rid of" Bobby & his bullying is to kill him, I think Marty (in extremely bad judgment) most likely felt that this would be the only way to ever get rid of Bobby. I thought it was really sad how Bobby humiliates Marty in front of people, beats him up on a regular basis & makes Marty's life a living hell. And Bobby is supposed to be Marty's "best friend since childhood"? The bottom line of this whole story is that NOBODY won, not to mention the fact that it was 6 on 1. With those odds, the outcome for Bobby wasn't very good. Marty got rid of Bobby, but now he's in prison & probably getting bullied by people far worse than Bobby Kent. Lisa Connelly has she & Marty's baby in prison, Allie's child has no mother, Heather has just continued her family history of violence, Derek (cousin) was a pretty good kid who got caught up in his cousin's scheme & wasted what life he may have had. Donnie (the person people knew the least about), is in the same boat as the others & Derek, the fake gangbanger, is finding himself in the gang world of prison & he sure won't "fit in". All the actors/actresses in this movie did an excellent job. Nick Stahl was amazing in his portrayal of Bobby Kent. Like I said, I'm trying to find some sympathy for Bobby, but it's hard. I was bullied all through school from Kindergarten through high school to the point where I dropped out of school & got my GED. The ramifications of this bullying is still with me years later. Killing a bully is obviously not the answer, but what is? It seems like today, kids don't listen to their parents, teachers or anyone who's tries to tell them they're not going in the right direction. To those that are bullied, it's hard to realize that school won't last forever & that they WILL survive, but it's easier said than done. Both murder & suicide are permanent solutions to temporary problems. People need to speak up & stand up when bullying going on, but it's not always out in the open. A lot of the bullying that Bobby did to Marty was in private & from the details of this case, neither set of parents knew what was going on between the two. The bottom line is that situations like this, as well as school shootings, etc., will continue. There are no easy answers, but the fact that it's out in the open finally is a step in the right direction.
