Review: Bullet

Mickey Rourke plays Butch ‘Bullet’ Stein, recently released from prison after eight years (for a crime he apparently had very little to do with) to live with his family. There’s his angry father (Jerry Grayson), worried mother (Suzanne Shepherd), his wannabe graffiti artist younger brother (Adrien Brody), and his mentally unbalanced ‘Nam veteran older brother (Ted Levine, seemingly having problems moving his mouth muscles). Drug-abusing Bullet spends his days mostly palling around with Brody and muscle-obsessed best friend Lester (John Enos III), but is ultimately set for a collision course with the local drug dealer (Tupac Shakur) he’s known since they were kids, and who was responsible for Bullet’s prison stint.

Seemingly a personal film for Mickey Rourke, this 1996 (but made in 1994) drama from director Julien Temple (“Earth Girls Are Easy”) comes with a script by Bruce Rubenstein (“Hendrix”) and Rourke himself (under the pseudonym ‘Sir’ Eddie Cook). It also features a couple of Mickey’s relatives in cast and crew. Unfortunately, the film is annoyingly stylised by director Temple (the drug scenes in particular are irritatingly shot), and combined with constant profanity, a lack of any real point, and at least three self-consciously ‘method’ performances, it’s a complete mess. Given the actors involved, I bet this was an absolute nightmare to shoot.

Of the aforementioned three method performances, Rourke’s is probably the best, but it’s obvious he’s doing Brando here (Which is kinda funny because early in his career he had more of a James Dean thing going), and he’s far too old playing a character who himself is probably too old to be a legitimate thug gangsta (Not to mention he’s a whole lot less convincing as a Jew than say Adrien “The Pianist” Brody). That’s a shame, because the performance itself is one of Rourke’s best, pre-“The Rainmaker”. That’s perhaps not saying much (especially since I never much liked the guy before 1997), but it’s true nonetheless. Adrien Brody, in one of his most prominent early roles, plays one of the least repugnant characters in the film, but there’s a self-consciousness about him as an actor here that bothered me.

Worst of all, however, is the usually outstanding Ted Levine. Saddled with the spectacularly clichéd psychologically damaged war veteran role (think Dennis Hopper in “The River’s Edge” or Randy Quaid in “The Wild Life”), deep-voiced Levine is all manner of self-consciously weird, and seems to be playing around with his already deep voice to a ridiculous and irritating degree. It’s a bizarre character to begin with, one totally at odds with what should’ve been something grittier and more real, and an unrestrained Levine cranks it up beyond 11. Worse still, his showboating isn’t entertaining (like it was in “Silence of the Lambs” or “Delirious”), it’s annoying and lends itself to parody (Justin Long did a great Levine imitation on a talk show once that I was reminded of here). Combined with Rourke’s obvious miscasting, they manage to ruin any chance the film has of being taken seriously. Watching a scene involving the family at the dinner table, the three actors’ antics stop the film dead.

The late (and supremely overrated) Tupac is well-cast as a posturing gangsta thug, and somewhat authentic, but the character is a cliché, much like Tupac (and gangsta rap as a whole) himself if you ask me, and isn’t afforded any real depth to begin with.

Those with more tolerance for method acting, gangsta rap, stylised direction, and inarticulate dialogue might find this some kind of unheralded masterpiece. Aside from hearing Barry White’s awesome ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’, I got nothing out of it at all, and had no trouble seeing why the film sat unreleased for a couple of years after being made in 1994. It’s just not very good and no one would give a shit about it if Tupac weren’t in it. It’s not that well known even considering the presence of Tupac, actually.

Look out for cameos by Peter Dinklage as an angry (dwarf) employer, and New Kid’s wannabe toughie Donnie Wahlberg as a lowlife thug named ‘Big Balls’. It was Donnie’s first credited acting gig, and although pretty lame here, he ended up being quite a decent character actor if you ask me and better than his supremely overrated brother.

Rating: D