★ 5 / 10
Bullet is a shot in the dark; a
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Bullet is a shot in the dark; a stray bullet that almost hits its mark. Almost. It's hard to screw up a film with Mickey Rourke, Tupac Shakur, Adrien Brody…
Bullet is a shot in the dark; a stray bullet that almost hits its mark. Almost. It's hard to screw up a film with Mickey Rourke, Tupac Shakur, Adrien Brody, and Ted Levine – hard, but not impossible. One of the most disappointing aspects of Bullet is that Shakur, the rare musician with a truly solid screen presence, only appears in a handful of scenes – which is still more than enough for him to steal the movie –, and only shares a couple of them with Rourke. One can only wonder if his death that same year had something to do with this.
Butch 'Bullet' Stein (Rourke) is out on parole after serving an eight-year sentence. On his first day out, Bullet stabs Flaco (Manny Perez), who works for drug dealer Tank (Shakur), in the eye. Apparently, stabbing people in the eye is Bullet's trademark, and Tank is one of his previous victims. So why is his nickname Bullet, then? And why does Tank wear an eye patch? Under it, he either has a glass eye, or a glassy eye, but an eye nonetheless.
It’s symptomatic of this script, in which Rourke had a hand, that the consequences fall very short of the magnitude of the actions that provoke them. In addition to Tank's eye, we have Butch's younger brother Ruby’s (Brody) hand. Ruby is an aspiring graffiti artist whose “drawing hand” is impaled with a knife, for which Butch is indirectly to blame.
This incident not only does not result in friction between the brothers, but it doesn’t prevent Ruby from painting a huge mural of his hand with a blade going through it, of all things. Basically, this event belongs in a first draft, not in the finished movie.
All things considered, I have mixed feelings about this film. Tupac is easily the best thing in it; when he's not there we expect him to show up, and when he shows up, all eyes are on him (you’ll excuse the obvious reference). The filmmakers should have given us a lot more of Shakur, or a lot less.
Rourke, on the other hand, gives a deliberately lethargic and morose performance, befitting the unmotivated Butch – who is only jolted out of his drug-induced stupor to commit petty crimes to get money to buy more drugs –, and in keeping with the scattered, disjointed, and episodic nature of much of the film. The highlight of Rourke's performance is a great scene in which Butch warns two young men he mugged earlier in the story of the dangers of ending up like him.
This Butch material, which could have been the American answer to Trainspotting, is set against the more straightforward Tank subplot, so that we are left with two different stories running perpendicular, rather than parallel, to each other, and when they intersect is more of a train wreck than a junction.
★ 7 / 10
Street. Real.
ms_jade_li
This film has a feel of a home movie mixed with real actors. It's hard to explain. Nothing is hollywoodized as far as being over the top, yet the characters…
This film has a feel of a home movie mixed with real actors. It's hard to explain. Nothing is hollywoodized as far as being over the top, yet the characters are "professional" as in comfortable in front of the camera. They are almost stylized.Back to the realism. The family here is so real they feel like they could be neighbors. However there is an added component of the family being Jewish, and honestly, this is the first time I remember seeing a Jewish family being portrayed in middle-class, "street" style (if anyone has suggestions for other examples, email me).By the time it's over you feel like you know the characters, or that you've met people exactly like them if you've ever lived in a moderate to large sized city. Mickey Rourke as Bullet is great, as usual. It's almost as if this role were made for him. I see him as a tragic, heroic figure, fighting against the demon heroin. His kid brother is Adrien Brody, a talented artist and headed down the same path as his brother if he's not careful. There's the 3rd brother, played by Ted Levine, who isn't quite right after coming back from the war. You will feel affection for this man before the end credits. There's the mom and dad, who could be anyone's mom and dad (watch it and you'll see what I mean). A real standout in the film is Bullet's sidekick, John Enos III. In 1996 when this movie was made let's just say Enos was a perfect specimen of the male form. YUM. (Mickey was, likewise, in *excellent* shape!) Not only is Enos gorgeous, but he plays the faithful buddy who is also very wrapped up in his looks role well. Tupac, as Tank, the villain, isn't the greatest actor but he does OK. His clothes and his style are noteworthy. A couple of the gang members have screen presence, including Pudgy and Bullet's old pal who is now one of the white guy gang leaders.There's a day-to-day sort of realness in the plot. It shows probably a week in the life of the characters. Some disturbing images of abandoned buildings-turned-heroin houses (not sure if they are called that, but if you know what a crackhouse is like, it's the same thing but with heroin. who knows maybe heroin houses are the forerunners to crackhouses and I just don't know it.) Lots of sad junkies doing their various things (shooting up, giving blowjobs for drugs, buying, selling, ODing.) Weaknesses in the film have less to do with the plot and the actors as it does with what seems to be sh*tty editing. That's a shame too, as Bullet (1996) has many elements that could have turned it into a classic.I decided to watch Bullet for 2 reasons: 1) Mickey Rourke; and 2) it was going to be on HBO at a time when I was looking for a movie to watch. I was glad I watched it. I'll watch it again too. Give it a chance and see what you think of it.
70%
AUDIENCE
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6.4/10
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thank you for putting this up on the site :)))