Bully

A troubling vérité-style docudrama about worthless, contemptible, murderous teenage losers, Bully is a raw, graphic, half-cautionary-tale/half-exploitation-flick, similar to director Larry Clark's own controversial 1995 film Kids. Based on true events, the film lays out the circumstances surrounding the very premeditated but very sloppy slaying of a malevolent south Florida delinquent who physically intimidated and verbally abused his friends until, well, they killed him. Fascinating in a Cops-meets-Psychology Today, can't-help-but-look kind of way, every character is a vile imbecile, but the shockingly believable performances Clark gets from his young cast (including Rachel Miner, Brad Renfro, Nick Stahl and Bijou Phillips) bring the picture an energy and potency that's hard to deny (although one has to wonder if more than shock value is intended, given the film's casual nudity, licentious dialogue and borderline-pornographic sex; still, Clark's coarse but resonant filmmaking style serves the story well). In spite of questionable veracity and deliberate prurience, Bully remains an effective, almost viscerally brutal, experience. Recommended, overall. (R. Blackwelder)