Bully

Acting is terrible. Lines over delivered, and forced. How did Trejo end up in this loser? He must have thought it was a feel good, message, movie. Or he needed some money, by doing this low budget, single camera movie.

In "Bully", a punk and his gang enjoy making life miserable for the weaker kids...in particularly, the pudgy and out of shape Jimmy. However, it goes way beyond this...the bully is also trying to extort money. Either Jimmy pays, or he gets beaten.

After one nasty encounter with the bully, an older man, 'Action' Jackson* (Ron Canada) sees Jimmy getting his butt whipped. In response, he offers to introduce him to Manny (Danny Trejo)...a guy who runs a boxing gym. Now, perhaps, Jimmy will feel confident and be able to stand up for himself.

While I enjoyed seeing this film (hey, who doesn't mind seeing bullies get their butts kicked?), the film seems to downplay or ignore one major issue....this IS criminal behavior. The bully is trying to extort money from Jimmy and I am surprised no one called the cops because of this. You can (and should) get jail time for this.

This film far better than a lot of the reviews I read.....were we watching the same film? The acting wasn't bad...and Trejo and Canada were great. There is a lot of cursing, while might bother some parents, but I actually think it's a pretty good film for teens.

*This name might sound familiar...it's the title of a 1988 action film starring Carl Weathers.

Not much nuance to the plot, and a pretty basic execution, but it was still an enjoyable diversion if you like underdog movies. The characters were likable, and the ending sufficiently satisfying. Again, no cinematic masterpiece, but a simple, fun movie.

A B grade film that delivered for me. If you are a movie snob planning to spend the entire time analyzing all technical aspects of a movie, this is not the movie for you. It's not a documentary or reality movie, there are fictional things...things that may not be likely to actually happen in real life. Some movies are designed to suspend reality, not be it. Reality is often not funny, and in many cases, not entertaining to me. Life is already too serious.

The reality aspects of this movie arent funny. The only people who scoff and say bullying is all part of growing up have never been tormented by a serious bully...or I should say, "criminal"...because the things bullies do are illegal in adult life...and should be illegal in teen life because these people virtually ruin some kid's teenage years, physically assault kids, and extort them. Bullies, as with other criminals dont stop being so at age 18, they tend to go on to become horrible adults. And because they are allowed to get away with their criminal behavior, they are emboldened, often coddled by a system that ignores their victims.

I'm still young at heart enough to relate to the adolescence, high school life and coming to age feel of a movie like this, and also deal with the stuff that makes this movie rated age 18+ (I still haven't figured out why specifically that rating). This may not be a blockbuster but it held my attention to the end, something I cant say about many other much higher rated movies.

From the title itself, you have to know that it's about bullies...well, you are right....LOL

back to the review, the story was simple, the acting was alright, Danny Trejo and Ron Canada joking is what made me laugh in this movie....

if you just want to relax., this is a good movie to watch.

7/10 for me...

story is simple, the acting was average and I like how the movie ended....it's good to see that Jimmy has "diverse" friends....