Bully
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: July 13, 2001 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
45
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
8
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Larry Clark's Bully calls the bluff of movies that pretend to be about murder but are really about entertainment. His film has all the sadness and shabbiness, all the mess and cruelty and thoughtless stupidity of the real thing. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
The tone -- a combination of earnestness and gallows humor -- is strangely appropriate. Read full review
80
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Ferocious and sometimes creepily funny, Bully is a raunchy suburban "Crime and Punishment." Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
If you stick with Bully through its seemingly endless repetition of themes and its hurl-inducing hand-held camerawork, it does build a crude, indefinable power. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The movie's somber message is worth heeding, and the acting is mostly excellent. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
That the actors can work under such scrutiny is amazing, and they are superb. The standout is Brad Renfro as Marty, the kid most under the thumb of the neighborhood bully. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
There's a terrible beauty to the work of Larry Clark, the controversial photographer turned filmmaker, that transcends chic nihilism. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The important thing is that Clark has found a new way to be creepy, which isn't easy. In the process he has created something irresistibly watchable, the kind of original piece that might mean less but reveal more than its creator intended. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeLoren King
Nothing new to say, and, in the end, no real point to make.
58
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
With its smooth skinned cast and demonized adults, doesn't feel very authentic. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Clark denies his audience the catharsis, resolution and renewal of classical tragedy. The film reduces its viewers to helplessness, and I'm not sure that's its intent. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
It feels like a peek into the closet of a pedophile and it's genuinely discomforting. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Unpleasant stuff, and Clark pounces on the material with his usual relish and a discomfiting combination of moralizing and prurience. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
If it weren't so rivetingly realistic, it would be an easy film to dismiss. And if it weren't so easily dismissible, it would be an easy film to defend. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalEd Epstein
My problem is that the lack of narrative structure deprives the film of any suspense, and without suspense the film eventually collapses from its own heat like a soufflé that has been in the oven just a few minutes too long.
50
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
The film's start-and-go rhythm can be as maddening as the characters' amorality and sheer wallowing stupidity, but Clark has an uncanny talent for putting atmosphere on celluloid. Read full review
40
Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard
Oddly, Bully's only moments of power come at the film's end, after the crime takes place.
38
USA TodayClaudia Puig
One has to wonder about the mind-set of a middle-aged filmmaker who repeatedly seeks out material about amoral and promiscuous teenagers with little to say. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Just withers compared with many older, better movies about teen alienation and nihilism, from "Rebel Without a Cause" to "River's Edge."
30
New Times (L.A.)Luke Y. Thompson
Like the recent "Baise-moi," Bully is a whole lot of shock and titillation trying to pretend it's saying something. Unlike the French import, however, there's no awareness of its own absurdity, nor anything for the audience to care about in the slightest. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
Whatever his intentions, Clark, in his third outing as a director, has come up with a film that is seriously flawed. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
A truly repulsive piece of trash that says far more about the absence of values from contemporary filmmaking than the waywardness of teens.
20
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
The script is worse than slack, and despite its lurid premise, Bully doesn't have "Kids" tabloid immediacy. Read full review
20
SlateDavid Edelstein
A riot of sleazy camera moves, bad acting, and maladroit profane dialogue. Read full review
10
The New York TimesDana Stevens
It's instructive to compare Bully with Jean-Pierre Ameris's "Bad Company," which tackles similar themes and manages to be explicit without stooping to cheap salaciousness. It's a genuinely disturbing film. Bully, in contrast, is merely disgusting. Read full review
10
VarietyDennis Harvey
By turns turgid, embarrassing and plain off-putting. Read full review
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