Philip_Pugh

A typical christmas movie, full of light hearted comedy, family

values and packed to the brim with sick inducing sentiment.

Thankfully, the comedy is actually funny (unlike many of it's

contemporaries), mainly due to the lead character Buddy played by

the new comic genius of WIll Farrell. Having found his

performances hilarious in `Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back' and

`Old School' my expectations for his performance in this film were

still fulfilled thankfully, despite it this film actually being pretty dire. It all moves along well enough and is moderately entertaining, but

the end was a little too much to stomach for me with the obligatory

sentimental christmas message. The story and ending are

painfully obvious and adds nothing new. Unfortunately all the best

jokes were used in the trailer so if you are after something fresh

and funny, just watch the trailer and save yourself an hour and a

half.

5/10

For a start this film takes the prize for the most interesting and

unpredictable casting EVER. Patrick Fudgit whose most notable performance was in Almost

Famous as the sweet natured, mild mannered, well brought up

William Miller. A young rock journalist well out of his depth, in Spun

he plays a spotty, dirty, gawky, drug addicted, computer game

playing trailer trash kid with an obese mother. Mena Suvari who we all know from American Beauty as Kevin

Spacey's beautiful cheer leader love interest is here the

unbeautiful, constipated junky love interest of `Spider Mike'. Brittany Murphy who's been seen this last year in 8 mile and

looking pretty glamourous in the comedy Just Married couldn't be

any less glamourous in this film. And then there's the lead, Jason Schwartzman who's been seen

playing some colourful and interesting characters in Rushmore

and Slackers, couldn't be any more dull as a Ross in this movie,

simply going along with peoples journeys to score his next fix for

free. The film is about Ross and the druggies he meets along the way.

To help secure his next fix he agrees to do some `driving' for

Mickey Rourke's character who is the `Cook' and the boyfriend of

one of his friends, Nikki. This film may be hard to watch for some with a record breaking

5345 cuts and hard to watch for others because of it's content. But

this film is entertaining, funny and well acted. The odd casting

pays off as every single actor pulls off their part convincingly

without question. They are obviously having a good time playing

characters they normally wouldn't have the chance to play. This film is very stylised and quirky, even giving every character

their own logo during the opening and closing credits. The quick

cutting emphasize the drug use while the grainy pale look

emphasize the derelict area and situation these characters are in. Funny and entertaining, but not overly original and due to the films

content it's not for everyone. But this is a great achievement for a

film made by a first time feature director, Jonas Akerlund (whose

music video past is more than evident here in it's style), in just 22

days.

8/10

Larry Clark returns with something a lot more like Kids (in it's

style) than his previous film ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE.

Bully is about Marty and his relationship with his long time buddy

Bobby Kent who is constantly bullying him with both physical and

verbal abuse. The bullying wins Marty the sympathy's of Lisa, a

frumpy, lonely girl, desperate for Marty's attention. Lisa can only

take so much watching her new boyfriend get beat on by his so

called best friend and Bobby even rapes her himself, so she

decides to gather together some friends to kill Bobby.

This film, inspired by a true story, is really a performance piece

and all the young leads pull it off superbly. All of them adding

another string to their bow. Rachel Miner (Lisa) proves there's a lot

more to her than just being Macurly Culkin's wife (now divorced).

Nick Stahl makes a wonderful ‘bully' portraying Bobby Kent

(Around this time IN THE BEDROOM was also released in which

he plays a drastically different character proving him to be a very

versatile actor). Brad Renfro (Marty) shows a more sensitive side

as the `bullied' and demands sympathy playing this repressed

character. Bijou Phillips (Ali) is phenomenal as the slutty friend of

Lisa. Michael Pitt (Donny) is hilarious as Ali's junky boyfriend. And

Larry Clark proves once more what a brilliant `visually real' director

he is.

The film is shocking, real and spookily entertaining. In particular

the last ten minutes of the film are totally brilliant with the choice of

music, editing and strong performances.

An absolute masterpiece. Easily the best work the cast and

director have done to date. Much better than kids.

10/10