[Note: This is part of a project I'm calling "A Century in a Month". The idea is that I'm going to start with a movie from about 100 years ago and pick a series of connected films until I get to the present. The rules I set this time are release years, per IMDB, can't be more than 5 years apart. I can't repeat the same connection although I can reuse the same type of connection. That means if I use "movies directed by Scorsese" to connect two, I can't use Scorsese as a connection again but I can use a director as a linking element again. I'm not really sure why I'm doing this, but it seems like a fun game.]
Connection to White Sands: Both produced by Berber & Robinson
Premise: An author returns to his home town and runs into his childhood bully, who resumes torturing him.
One thing that became quickly apparent as I watched Big Bully was that I’d absolutely seen this movie before. That happens sometimes. I’ve spent hundreds of hours tracking and recalling movies I’ve seen, but it’s hard to recall every movie I caught when I was 10 on HBO at noon, after Fox Kids was done and I refused my parents’ pleas to do something outside. In general, if I’m not 90% certain I’ve seen a movie, I err on the side of caution and don’t count it. So, for the purpose of this “Century in a Month” project, this still counts as an eligible movie.
I hate to “only 90s kids will understand” a situation, but I do think it’s true that the 90s were particularly lousy with a type of theatrical film that had no interest in appealing to the adults. It was a mix of conditions. The invention of PG-13 in the 80s fractured the landscape, ghettoizing the G and PG space even more. The rise of Nickelodeon by the 90s created a profitable landscape for targeting only children. By the 2000s, outlets like Disney Channel were making their original movies and the major studios leaned even more heavily into animation. By now, with the disappearance of the film budget middle class (only blockbusters and indies) and the rise of streaming, it’s hard to come by a Big Bully anymore*.
*I’m saying the 90s, but the era I’m talking about is more accurately late 80s-late 00s.
This is a bad movie that almost accidentally stumbles into some really interesting stuff. There’s a lazy Stand By Me riff at the beginning that goes on a little too long. Then it moves to Rick Moranis and Tom Arnold as adults. And that’s where the interesting ideas pop up. I like that Moranis and Arnold’s kids swap places, with Moranis’ son bullying Arnold’s son. The film starts with them fulfilling the lie every bullied kid’s parent tells them, with Moranis as a reasonably successful author and Arnold’s life going downhill since his days as a bully. Arnold has turned into a nice guy over the years, but something in his brain snaps when he sees Moranis again. He realizes that life was good when he was a bully, so he decides to be a bully again…And his life does improve. The movie never reckons with that really striking idea: bullying improved his life. Really though, it’s tied to confidence more than bullying. Moving back home is a ding on Moranis’ pride that opens him up to bullying again. Arnold gets confidence from the power he feels bullying. Both are looking for the same thing but from different ends.
The movie ultimately does nothing with this. Instead, it’s a bunch of childish pranks and characters not taking the 15 seconds required to diffuse any situation. This isn’t surprising. It is a rightfully forgotten movie from 1996, aimed only at children, so there’s no reason to expect more. It was weird though watching this and realizing they actually stumbled onto some good stuff.
Also, can we take a second to talk about how weird it is that Rick Moranis was a big star in the 90s? The only reason he doesn’t have the same string of increasingly disappointing family movies as Steve Martin and Robin Williams is because he specifically stepped back from his career. That guy was a top of the poster star though. Let’s just say Big Bully wasn’t the best use of him.
Verdict: Strongly Don’t Recommend
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