Big Bully (1996)

"Rick Moranis and Tom Arnold are first-rate" (Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times) as long-time school rivals who pick up a feud where it never left off as teachers at their alma mater in this gag-filled war of wits and half-wits from the writer of Grumpy Old Men.

If you like Rick Moranis and Tom Arnold

I found this a cute little movie. Novelist David and his son move back to the small Minnesota town where David grew up in the 70's. He's been invited to teach a creative writing class at his old school.

At first his former tormentor Ross is just a loser shop teacher with an uncooperative wife, and five sons living in a trailer home while David is respected and well-received by his former peers. But when Ross realizes that his former victim is the kid who was responsible for landing him in a Rochester reform school, he becomes a born-again Bully, and the chase is on.

There's an ironic twist where David's son Ben starts to bully Ross's own son. Eventually things come to a head, with a nightmarish chase through the school building during a nighttime thunder and rainstorm, and David escapes Ross's clutches but fears the bully's been killed, but things work out in the end, if a bit unevenly.

Jeffrey Tambor, Don Knotts, and Carol Kane round out the humor in this nice little comedy about two men revisiting their pasts and rebuilding their futures. December 1, 2006

Serious topic, with humor to make it easier

An excellent comedy, with great casting. Bullying is a serious topic, and it is shown as such, but there is plenty of comedy to keep it from being too depressing or dark of a movie. The behind the scenes look at teachers' lives is priceless. The final scenes are extreme and weird; for a while I thought it was a dream sequence. More could have been done at the end, showing the developing friendship between the former bully/victim. But all in all, it is great to watch. February 10, 2006

The rivalry continues and later ends

David Leary(Rick Moranis) and his young son Ben move to Minnesota from California where David takes a teaching position at an elementary school that Ben will be attending. David himself is a Minnesota native and attended the same school when he was a boy. The Learys' new neighbor is Art Lundstrom(Jeffrey Tambor) and his wife Betty(Faith Prince). The Lundstroms immediately welcomed the Learys upon the Learys' arrival. "We won't need the Weather Channel while they're living next door to us.",David tells Ben. Art noticed some ugly cracks in the Learys' deck and offered some of his stain for replenishing the deck. Art says,"Make sure you apply a few extra coats otherwise the moisture will seep into the wood and rot it from the inside.". Art tells about the biting sunfish at Lake Rebecca. Also he offers his tuba to Ben. Ben hates Minnesota and would rather stay in California. Ben misses his mother who is David's ex-wife. The next morning,Art is chopping wood in the pleasant sunshine. David's childhood acquaintance Roscoe Bigger(Tom Arnold) comes along and continues to pick on David,despite they're both now adults. Don Knotts is the school principal who has Ben and Roscoe's son Kirby in his office for fighting. Then there's a circulating rumor that David killed Roscoe in a waterfall. David himself believed he committed the murder. All he did was push Roscoe with a long piece of plywood into the waterfall. David tells Art late one evening,while Art was pruning hedges,that David killed shop teacher Roscoe. "Everyone knows you two had a twisted relationship.",Art tells David. Julianne Phillips plays David's girlfriend,who also teaches at the school. During childhood,Roscoe stole what's called a "moonrock" because of his aspiration of becoming an astronaut,which never happened. Eventually,David and Roscoe become friends and both their families move out of Minnesota together. WOOLY BULLY,performed by Sam the Sham & the Pharoahs is played during the opening credits. The song was on hit parade in 1965. The film was directed by Steve Miner,who also directed 1986's SOUL MAN. Those who saw this film also CARPOOL,also starring Arnold and Moranis's other films such as HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS,HONEY I BLEW UP THE KID,HONEY WE SHRUNK OURSELVES,MY BLUE HEAVEN,GHOSTBUSTERS and GHOSTBUSTERS 2. April 5, 2005

Unfunny Dismal Comedy

Every so often Hollywood takes a serious theme like murder or bullying and tries to make light of it. When that attempt gropes toward the inner pain of dark comedy, the film may have merit. Yet when the focus is on cheap nonlaughs surrounded by a total disregard for substance, logic, and human decency, the result is most often a bloated, turgid mess like BIG BULLY.

Director Steven Miner wastes the limited talents of all concerned. Rick Moranis is a weedy, nerdy little man who has to relive the trauma of childhood bullying by beefy Tom Arnold. As the film opens, both Moranis and Arnold are in the fourth grade. Arnold plays a blubbery bully that one sometimes sees in a filmed version of a Steven King horror movie. But in the hands of a King based script, the bully is a source of unredeemed evil. Here, under Miner's unsure grasp, Arnold is no more than a walking tub of prepubescent lard who seeks to bully the nerdy Moranis. Now if Miner had tried to make a serious movie about childhood bullying, then BIG BULLY might have had something worthwhile to say about the angst of childhood insecurities.

Now flashforward twenty years. Moranis and Arnold are both teachers in the same grammar school, and Arnold quickly reverts to the bully that he was. What makes this regression reprehensible is Arnold's justification that as a victim, Moranis thoroughly deserved his fate. What then follows is a ridiculous chase scene between prey and predator that offers no lasting insight into either demented personality. Julianne Phillips is a wasted toss in as Moranis' girlfriend. At the end, when director Miner seeks closure, the film ends in the uneasiest of endings, one that satisfied neither the desire for revenge nor one that offers justification for that revenge in the first place. February 27, 2005

Greatest Big Bully!

i personaly think the film is great. Not hard to understand. The main plot is that two school kids (rick moranis and tom arnold) dont get along with eachover at school and they grow up and both work at a school while rick is still scared of tom and then toms child is getting bullied by ben (ricks child) but of course, as you could imagine,........ it all ends hapily ever after! July 19, 2004

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