481 words · 2 min
Bullet (1996)
Shot in Brooklyn in 1994 and released only after Tupac's death: in Julien Temple's crime drama he plays the one-eyed gang boss Tank.
- Director
- Julien Temple (previously Earth Girls Are Easy)
- Screenplay
- Bruce Rubenstein and “Sir Eddie Cook”a pseudonym of Mickey Rourke
- Producer
- John Flock; Village Roadshow / Clipsal Films
- US distributor
- New Line Cinema
- Cast
- Mickey Rourke (Butch “Bullet” Stein), Tupac Shakur (Tank), Adrien Brody (Ruby Stein), Ted Levine (Louis Stein), John Enos III (Lester), Donnie Wahlberg, Suzanne Shepherd, Jerry Grayson
- Cinematography
- Crescenzo G. P. Notarile
- Shot
- 1994 in New York, mostly in Brooklyn; copyright date 1995
- Release
- Wikipedia and film databases list a limited US release in October 1996 (dated October 1, 1996), a month after Tupac’s death. Variety reported in spring 1997 that the film was already on video shelves in the US when it reviewed its belated theatrical run in Australia.
- Running time
- approx. 93-96 minutes
- German title
- Bullet, Auge um Auge
Bullet is the least known of Tupac’s feature films. Shot in New York in 1994, it sat on the shelf for years and only came out after Tupac’s death, with almost no promotion and, in the US, essentially straight to video. Tupac plays Tank, a one-eyed Brooklyn gang boss and Mickey Rourke’s adversary.
Credits
The story
Butch Stein, known as Bullet, comes home after eight years in prison to his Jewish family in Brooklyn: his elderly parents, his younger brother Ruby, who paints murals, and his older brother Louis, a traumatized Vietnam veteran. Butch slides straight back into old habits, heroin and petty crime, and runs afoul of Tank, the gang leader who controls the neighborhood. The conflict ends in death for several of the main characters.
Tupac on set
In a 2021 interview Julien Temple recalled that Tupac performed Shakespeare for him at their first meeting. On set he was a professional, Temple said, and whenever they improvised, he liked what Tupac came up with. Temple also describes how the studio cut its own version behind his back and swapped the planned score for cheaper licensed music.
Tupac’s friendship with Mickey Rourke outlasted the shoot. In his spring 1995 Vibe interview from prison, Tupac named Rourke among the people who stood by him at the time: Rourke, he said, simply befriended him.
Reviews
Bullet got little praise. Variety called it grungy, downbeat and uninvolving, with a listless script and a tired lead performance from Rourke. Only fans of the late Tupac Shakur, second-billed in the cast, might want to check it out, the trade paper suggested. No box office figures are on record.
In context
Bullet was made in 1994, one of the hardest years of Tupac’s life: Above the Rim opened in March, his sexual abuse trial in New York lay ahead, and in November he was shot at Quad Studios (see court cases and Shootings). By the time the film finally came out, Tupac was dead. That makes Bullet the first of three films released posthumously, followed by Gridlock’d and Gang Related.