Bully, the third feature film from photographer-turned-director Larry Clark, follows the pattern laid down by his debut movie Kids: deploring the amoral fecklessness of today's American teens while lingering (some might say gloating) over their naked bodies--or at least, the naked bodies of the better-looking ones. The plot's based on a real-life murder case that took place in Florida in 1994. High school teenagers Bobby Kent and Marty Puccio have been best friends from infancy--or so Bobby insists. But their friendship consists of Bobby bullying and humiliating Marty. Marty's new girlfriend Lisa decides this has to stop--especially after Bobby rapes her and her friend Lisa. Bobby, she announces, must be killed. She ropes in a few friends to help--none of them over-endowed with brains or savvy--and recruits a supposed "Mafia hitman" who's scarcely any older or brighter than the rest of them.

Though there's an air of moral condemnation hanging over the film, Clark avoids any obvious "society's to blame" angles. His killers are from middle-class homes, not noticeably deprived, and their parents (one of them played by Clark himself) are well-meaning if helplessly unaware of what their kids are up to. Maybe the rap music on the soundtrack--such as the Ghetto Inmates' "Thug Ass Bitch"--gives some clue, but essentially Clark seems to be suggesting that these kids are morally bankrupt because that's just how they are these days. Bully is well shot and well acted, and there's a dark humour to be savoured--especially in the farcically inept murder scene--but in the long run it's a dispiriting experience. -Philip Kemp

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