Whatever his intentions, Larry Clark's controversial 1995 debut Kids (an ambling day-in-the-life portrait of urban teenagers) came across as a staunchly conservative cautionary tale, the Moral Majority's worst vision of America's youth and its decrepit value system. Despite his exceptional talents for improvisation and on-the-fly naturalism, Clark and his screenwriter, Harmony Korine, created characters so irredeemably vicious and unfeeling that the film seemed wildly sensationalistic and laughably far from a modern-day Los Olvidados. Clark's third feature, Bully, is certain to spark a sense of déjà vu as it virtually transplants the same sex-crazed, drug-addled, misdirected adolescents from the streets of Manhattan to a South Florida suburb. But crucial differences separate the two films. For one, Bully is based on the true story of a high-school student murdered by six of his peers, so rather than take a broad swipe at the younger generation, Clark gives a more plausible account of the hazy groupthink that led to a specific crime. Better still, Clark taps into a healthy vein of the dark humor that eluded him in Kids. He mines endless laughs from the immense gulf between the conspirators—who operate without a moral compass—and those who know the difference between right and wrong. In a performance that radiates equal parts intelligence and menace, Nick Stahl stars as the title character, a domineering sociopath who keeps tight reins on Brad Renfro, his passive best friend. Middle-class suburbanites from stable families, Stahl and Renfro spend their idle time getting into trouble with girls and drugs and petty crime, showing little regard for the possible consequences of their actions. After Renfro gets involved with the deceptively quiet Rachel Miner, whom he impregnates, she's so appalled by Stahl's mistreatment of him that she goads Renfro into a murder plot. The plan cascades when Stahl sexually assaults Miner's promiscuous friend, Bijou Phillips, and others get involved in the scheme, including teen prostitute Kelli Garner, local "hitman" Leo Fitzpatrick, and a scene-stealing Michael Pitt as a feckless burnout. With strong echoes of Macbeth and Julius Caesar, Bully approaches the inevitable killing with the dreadful force of Shakespearean tragedy. The moral high-mindedness of Kids is replaced by a wry and audaciously funny slant on young delinquents so unfazed by the gravity of killing a person that they leak the news to a Pizza Hut waitress. Bully suffers from unfortunate overlap with Kids, particularly in Clark's oft-gratuitous and creepy fixation on sleek teen flesh, and some facile suggestions regarding the root causes (video games, rap music) of their actions. But not since River's Edge have the bonds of youthful depravity been so sharply and savagely delineated.