Bully

(Larry Clark, 2001)

If you were initially intrigued but ultimately disappointed by Mean Creek, then watch this. It’s essentially the same premise (a group of kids conspire to take revenge on a local bully) but cashed out with far greater intelligence and intensity. As with his debut, Kids, Clark uses a young cast and a natural documentary-like style to portray juvenile characters engaging in a range of unrelentingly shocking behaviours. As a technique for building tension towards the anticipated scene of revenge, this full-on hyper-real explicitness works very well. (If you've seen my earlier review of Wolf Creek, you'll know that I’m all in favour of good quality tension-building prior to scenes of horror.) The revenge scene itself is appropriately gruesome (I haven’t seen a more realistic and frightening depiction of someone being stabbed with a knife since the opening of Goodfellas) and its aftermath is saturated with a cruel black humour. My only criticism of the film would be that at certain points, Clark’s explicit style edges over into gratuitousness. I’m not at all surprised to see naked flesh during a sex scene, but when a character is simply walking down the street, or sitting on a chair, do I really need to see an entire screen-full of arse, or a close-on upskirt shot?

Bully @ IMDb (UK)