Bobby Kent (Nick Stahl) is not a nice guy. He often beats up his best friend Marty Puccio (Brad Renfro), abuses Marty's girlfriend Lisa Connelly (Rachel Miner), and he rapes Lisa's friend Ali Willis (Bijou Phillips). There isn't a lot to do in the suburban Florida town where Bobby and his friends live. They play violent shoot-em-up video games, work at the Pizza Hut, go surfing at the beach, and cruise in their hot rods. But mostly, Bobby and his friends have lots of sex. The film is drenched in graphic shots of barely legal naked teenagers. Sexual identity is an undercurrent in Bobby's story: he watches gay porn while he rapes Ali, and he forces Marty to dance with him at a gay club. Some of the other teenagers think that Bobby and Marty are a couple.
Marty is fed up with his best friend's twisted ways and Lisa couldn't agree more, so they plan to murder Bobby with a group of willing and unwilling accomplices. In the midst of their plotting, they find themselves contemplating the possible aftermath of the crime. They decide to kill Bobby because he's a bully who has hurt and angered them, and also because they're bored and desensitized to violence. After much drug use and a failed attempt at murder, they hire a supposed hitman (Leo Fitzpatrick), but as the story progresses it becomes apparent that he is just a tough-talking teenager. Initially, some in the group dismiss the plan as a lark, but eventually, they all come to the realization that they will go through with it, particularly when they lure Bobby out to a nearby swamp where he is attacked with knives. Marty slits his throat. The hitman beats Bobby's head in with a bat, then forces Derek (Daniel Franzese) to help him throw the body in the swamp. Several days later they are all arrested by the police. At the end of the film, subtitles show the prison sentences that the teenagers received.
This dramatic thriller is based on actual events, the true story of Bobby Kent, a bossy Florida teenager who was beaten to death by a group of his peers in 1993. The screenplay was written by David McKenna and Roger Pullis, who adapted Jim Schutze's 1998 book "Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge". The soundtrack features many songs. Director Larry Clark takes a hard look at the lives of some confused American teenagers.
