Bull: Hora da Vingança

It's Gruesome! It's a bit much !! But as a story Bull is in highest degree. What an amazing performance by the whole cast. Authentic character interactions and portrayal. It's gore not a bore.

Saw this at the London Film Festival premiere last night. It's a well-made and engaging low-budget crime film, with excellent acting and music. Neil Maskell and David Hayman give dependably good performances. It's very much along the lines of Dead Man's Shoes and Kill List, although lacking the flair, originality and imagination of those classics. Hard geezer seeks revenge, with over-the-top violence and nasty, humourless working-class gangsters. A grim and dour tone. Some nicely choreographed stabbings and gunshots. It's nothing new, but it does it satisfactorily and holds your attention.

It's a great shame then that the film is almost fatally marred by a bizarre and poorly thought-through conclusion that had to make me wonder why not a single person on the team of this production said 'um, hang on a minute, are we really going with this ending..?'.

It's just wrong for the tone of the film.

I can see what they were aiming for, as it's been done before in one of the best crime films ever made, but here they mess it up by not setting it up correctly, and in the process almost wreck a perfectly workable film.

All in all, despite this flaw, this is worth a watch, as it is undeniably entertaining.

This is one of the best last year's movies. A dark, gritty, violent British film that doesn't hold back. I suggest you don't read anything about this, there is a chance some reviewer gives you a spoil.

If you are in the mood for a really dark crime drama/thriller, you will enjoy this. Great actors, not a second wasted, this movie grabs you by the throat.

I stood in awe watching the end. I can understand the reasons why some people may dislike it. In any case, you are gonna enjoy the ride. For me, the ending made it even more exciting.

A well made revenge thriller, with particularly gruesome and graphic retribution acts. I'm not really into it with this level of nastiness. If you want a good feeling in you after a viewing, don't see this.

Though by the end, the aforementioned excessive nastiness can be explained by a story revelation, there's still not much gain from this given the negative prestige we feel for the main character.

The film-craft is in top form here with a high level of art attributed to the script, direction, acting and sound. Unfortunately the main character is an awful person, even before he went evil. It's not easy to sympathise with the guy, for his gruesome acts and short flashback segments which don't display his humane side for long enough. Not possible to get close enough to him.

Writer and director Paul Andrew Williams created a masterpiece for this overused genre. In the very comfortable well paced 88 min runtime, he gives us non-stop intensity, violence, suspense and gore, all within a minimal budget, used very wisely. I'm not a fan of flashbacks, but in this film they were needed, and executed perfectly, otherwise the differentiating-from-the-norm twist doesn't work. The cinematography and score was perfect. Casting and performances were outstanding by all. I did have trouble understanding some of the dialogue from the hardened Bri-ish accents, especially when speaking in lower volumes, but nevertheless, everything that happens along this fun ride, makes that small detail irrelevant. It's one of those films that you can easily watch at least one more time. Mad props to Williams for giving us this little gem, hopefully we'll get lucky and he gives us more. A well deserved 9/10 from me.