Bullet

I once lived with this little Jew that looked like Rick Moranis.  Despite growing up in a nice upper middle class Jewish neighborhood and having two doctors as parents, this little Jew started dealing drugs at the ripe age of 13, surely not long after his Bar Mitzvah, the day he became a "man."  I always tried to imagine this weak and tiny Jew getting busted by the cops and being sent to one of the various American prisons aka rape factories.  How would such a little guy fair against horny Tyrone and deranged delinquent Darnell behind bars?  In the film Bullet, I thankfully got to see such a scenario.  The film stars the very Un-Jewish Mickey Rourke (who also co-wrote the film under the pseudonym Sir Eddie Cook) as a good criminal Jew boy named Bullet who has been recently released from prison and is now a changed (and morally stained) man.

 
Despite growing up in a nice upper middle class, Bullet fell into drugs and crime at an early age.  His brother Louis (played with love and empathy by Ted Levine) is a Vietnam Vet who now suffers from some type of debilitating psychosis where he believes he is leading an invisible army towards final victory.  Bullet's baby brother Ruby (played eloquently by Adrian Brody) is an aspiring street artist who most fancies illegally painting buildings and other forms of public/private property.  The overweight alcoholic father of these three brothers sees them all as bums and disappointments, sons on the apocalypse. Their Mother seems in denial about her boys, an elder Jewess who loves to play piano and probably never misses Temple.  After Bullet gets back from prison, most of his family does not seem to recognize him as a new and changed man, a victim of prison sodomy.  

Tupac Shakur stars in Bullet as Tank, a drug lord enemy of Bullet who seeks bloodthirsty revenge.  Bullet was responsible for taking out one of Tank's eyes whilst they were in prison. Tank must have some respect for his Judaic friend's background as he claims to be evening the score by looking to get an "eye for an eye."  To show Tank what Bullet really thinks of him, he stabs an anti-Semitic Latino in the eye with a lovely knife in a fairly concerned fashion.  Bullet's only interest after getting out of prison is shooting up H and speeding up his own belligerently executed suicide, kind of like Mickey Rourke's tragic character in Rumble Fish, only less suave. Bullet may be one of the last films Rourke acted in before his face was butchered by botched plastic surgery, but his character looks like a miserable mess, wearing a not-so-flattering hoodie, sunglasses, beanie, and star of David gold chain at all times.  No one has ever accused the Jews of being great dressers or being proponents of aesthetics but Bullet looks like he belongs in a homeless shelter habitat.  Of course, a Sicilian-American gangster business associate lets Bullet know that one must always dress to impress.

Tank may be a drug lord but he is also obviously a play thug carny huckster at heart who lacks real tact.  Instead of killing Tank with his own bare hands, he decides giving a poisonous package of junk is the best way to treat the man who stole his eye. When that fails, Tank brings in a beefy buck Negro to pound Bullet into the ground but that ultimately fails as well.  I have a feeling that the real Tupac was much like Tank, a Nigga who talked a bunch of shit but had nothing to really back it up with, hence his early death.  Tupac's death also came the same year that Bullet was released, a wonderful example of trash art reflecting trash life.  Thankfully, the bright and infinitely intrinsically valuable life of Tupac has been immortalized in a Jewish dysfunctional family crime film like Bullet.  

I must admit the funniest and most fulfilling part of Bullet is the ending.  Bullet's deranged Vietnam Vet brother goes on one more special-ops mission that involves Tupac's throat, a large expertly sharpened knife blade, and an albino rat.  I hate most contemporary crime and gang films because they glorify the lowest gutter trash imaginable. Of course, I can respect the well dressed Italian-American men featured in The Godfather as well as the coked out Mafia men of Goodfellas but never nor ever the contemporary urban jungle cretins of the intercity.  There is nothing glamorous or ideal about the world featured in Bullet.  Bullet makes this clear when he shows his happy heroin track marks to a couple of up and coming hoodlum play thugs.  He was doing them a favor knowing his own life ended the day he entered a jail cell.  If only my Jewish ex-roommate would listen to the wise words of stoic street philosopher Bullet.  

-Ty E