Butch "Bullet" Stein, a Jewish junkie from the mean streets of Brooklyn, is paroled after eight years in prison. Butch rips off a runner for local drug dealer, Tank, and is soon right back into his old habit of snorting coke and shooting up heroin with his best friend Lester. Enraged by Butch's affront and already determined to get revenge on him for a past wrong, Tank sets about getting even with his old enemy by hiring a hulking brute, Gates, to beat Butch. When the confrontation occurs, however, Gates breaks his hand on the battle-hardened Butch. Besides Lester, the only people in Butch's corner are his two brothers, the mentally-unhinged Vietnam War veteran Louis and aspiring artist Ruby, neither of whom can be counted on to help him in the inevitable showdown. I took my Mum to see this when it came out in 97. A male usher came walking over to me, and said "I don't mean to pry but why you going to see this". "It's like a private screening". One of my answers was "I like Mickey Rourke". This one that only ran a week at two Wallis Cinemas, was actually Mickey's comeback to cinema after White Sands, five years prior. Here, this film proves time and time again, why Mickey Rourke is one of the all time acting greats. You might think, oh, not another drug movie, which really it isn't. Bullet's different, as to the interesting and funny characters is Rourke's family. Rourke's just got out of prison, with his pet rat, after an 8 year stint, the rewards you reap, all for keeping your mouth shut. Already to start business again, his father starting on him at the dinner table, we see the hopelessness of this family. Rourke's character, Butch, nickname Bullet was once a prize fighter, who sports a number of trophies in his room. His younger brother (Adrien Brody) who idolizes him, is a gifted artist, friends with Rourke's best friend, Lester who drives a pink Cadillac, (this actor played the pimp in Phone Booth). Now we get to the real character of the family, the much older brother Lewis (great character Ted Levine) classic who's room like Lebanon, a war nut, a psychiatric case, who keeps two pit bulls in his room, and hardly washes his underwear. He likes stuffing cake into his mouth for dinner too, but also he's of course into guns. In one scene this grown man harps onto his mom, nagging him to buy him this new gun. When she's not really agreeing to his request, he resorts to crazy talk. Truly a funny scene. Lewis also teaches army survival skills to kids, standing on top of a mound in the district. Totally a zealous gun and army nut. It makes me laugh recalling these scenes. Another scene, while he's out at night, walking his dogs, he really gives it to these two cops, patrolling the area who have it for Bullet's family. All the while, Bullet and Lester are only a few short hundred meters, upstairs, doing over the neighbors place. Bullet is funny, sad, tragic, but different. If you watch Tupac Shakur in anything, make it this. He plays Bullet's enemy and bad guy Tank, in an impressive piece of acting, almost stealing Rourke of this movie, or surpassing his performance. Though the ending is tragic, it's act of retribution, finishes this movie perfectly. A good satisfier but very funny too, fans of drug movies will get a kick out of this one, I've viewed a few times. A little shock violence, here and there, one scene, a bloodied victim of Lewis's big army knife. I'm from Russia, and i watched this movie when i was 10, my older brother showed it to me, since that time i watched it thousand times, and i still think- this is most beautiful movie what was performed ever. You know, i think 'Bullet' is a one of the symbols of 90-'s like that song 'i like to move it'. We have a very popular web site in Russia- 'vkontakte'- one of the topics there is a 'Bullet', People who sent their comments there know every word from this film, every move, i like this film very much too, but when i started to read what they write there, i realized, i'm not SO 'crazy' to write something new to this topic EVERY DAY. So we have some fans of the film here too. <br/><br/>And something else. Micky is going to have a role in Russia, in Moscow, this is so cool, my favourite actor through 13 years of doing nothing plays in big movie again, in my country, and all this time i believed he is the best, it's a great feeling. But he sad something like 'i think the wrestler is my best role' he was wrong, Bullet is the best.
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295 weeks ago