88% Bully

All Critics (94) | Top Critics (36) | Fresh (83) | Rotten (11)

Bully is less a checklist plan for eliminating abusive behavior than an emotionally powerful wake-up call for a society too long in denial.

Bully" is smart and compassionate about the pain of its wounded subjects and the frustration felt by their parents, seemingly abandoned by the system. What the powerful film lacks is insight into bullying.

Hirsch seldom gets face time with any bullies or their parents, and he tends to ignore the complicated social and psychological patterns that feed the problem.

It would have been nice if the film had reflected its title a bit more and looked at the bullies themselves - what drives one kid to torture another? Is it a reaction to home life, is it fear, is it innate awfulness?

"Bully" doesn't need research or great filmmaking or narrative focus, per se. It needs only the shaming power of its relentlessness and a young audience open to sharing in that shame.

A deeply moving but highly selective look at the effects of bullying on children and teenagers.

"Bully" is a bell-weather movie, which should be seen by every middle school and high school student in America.

Sure to start some conversations

Bully" is as infuriating as it is heartbreaking. When a school principal calls her kids "good as gold" we want to throw something at the screen because she is so stupidly blind to what is happening.

At last a proactive campaign of awareness and action to defeat bullying is afoot. This documentary has already been lauded as a step toward that goal.

Where Hirsh is trying to represent how terrible bullying can be, he shoots himself in the foot by going after the most extreme and stereotypical cases.

An emotionally powerful snapshot of the problem that should serve as a valuable catalyst to public discussion.

Your heart hurts for these kids, and the blood boils, too, at irrefutable evidence that these children are not safe in their schools.

The movie seems to be content to just say "Bullying is a very real and very serious problem in American schools" as loudly and clearly as it can.

Harrowing portrait of ordinary kids being assaulted verbally and physically, and a social system that does not protect them.

The personal approach still makes "Bully" worth seeing, letting other bullied kids know they're not alone, and showing adults how dismissing bullying as "kids will be kids" doesn't cut it.

By ignoring the perpetrators, Hirsch keeps the finger pointed only at the victims and the underfunded, overworked school administrators. In a way it feels like the bullies were yet again let off the hook.

A film that is as important for bullies to see as it is for their parents to see, so everyone can understand just how devastating a problem this can be.

The pic is important for many to see. But it ends up being akin to a medical film that shows the effects of an infection, but offers nothing in terms of explaining why it occurs or ways to treat it (Full Content Review for Parents also available)

For a film that understandably only scratches the surface of its topic, Bully carries a devastating emotional punch.

Don't let that circus about the Bully's rating obscure the quality of the movie.

"Bully" is a good start to a necessary conversation, but its loving voice is likely to be drowned out by haters who hide their own wounded hearts behind Internet pseudonyms and broadcast microphones.

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