Bull is the Kill List that even Kill List wasn't

Movies
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I’m not really going to talk about this movie until at least one other person here has seen it. But I’ll lead with a Tweet:

Here’s a thread on The Cottage and here’s a thread on London to Brighton. Here’s a review of Cherry Tree Lane:

For me, Bull is probably somewhere below London to Brighton, but easily on par with Cottage and Cherry Tree Lane. But since I doubt you guys have seen those movies, let me give you another frame of reference.

I love Ben Wheatley, but I was never crazy about his first movie, Kill List. Wheatley clearly wanted to marry a British crime thriller with a horror movie, and, well, he certainly did that. I just don’t think he did it with the same sly finesse he brought to stuff like High-Rise, Sightseers, Free Fire, and In the Earth. Kill List, which felt like the set up for a gut punch finale, felt earlier and rawer than Wheatley’s other movies.

Bull is the movie that I wish Kill List had been. One of you see it and then let’s spoil the hell out of it with a conversation.

-Tom

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Finally, someone else!

Wow, I haven’t seen The Cottage since it hit theatres but I recall enjoying it and the cast, particularly feisty Jennifer Ellison and her potty mouth. I also love Serkis and Shearsmith. I don’t think my girlfriend has seen it so… I think a rewatch is in order.

My favourite memory of The Cottage was seeing an old lady entering the theatre and walking up the steps to sit somewhere behind me. I had an inkling of what the movie was going to be, but I suspected that she thought she was about to watch some pastoral English period drama. Possibly starting Keira Knightley. ‘The Cottage’. That stuff is like catnip to the older folks here. But maybe I had this old lady wrong. I can’t remember how long it takes before The Cottage bares its teeth but, once it did, the old lady got up and hobbled out. Ah, there you go; the wrong movie. A few minutes passed. The old lady was back! I’d got it all wrong! She’d just gone to the toilet!

…Then the old lady walked back down the steps. She’d forgot her walking stick.

I’d not heard of the other movies—apart from Sightseers which was filmed just up the road from me which is rare and cool—so thanks! Looking forward to checking these out.

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I’ve seen London to Brighton and Cherry Tree Lane but missed The Cottage.

As for the Ben Wheatly fellow, I’ve seen Kill List, Sightseers, High-Rise, and Fire Free…(I didn’t know these were all the same director to be honest)

I guess I should see The Cottage and Bull?

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I had a few moments of serious confusion thinking you guys were talking about Ben Whishaw, and I went oh wow, he directs movies too? But anyway, I guess I should check this Wheatley bloke out.

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OMG, you’ve just blown my mind! THAT WAS REECE SHEARSMITH IN THE COTTAGE! I don’t think I’d made that connection (?) although I can see it clearly in my memory now, even though I had no idea who he was when I saw The Cottage. But since then I’ve seen him and thought he was great in the Ben Wheatley movie In the Earth and a couple of episodes of a British TV show called Inside No. 9. Little did I know I already liked him!

-Tom

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Corrections: Kill List was his second movie

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Poor Down Terrace. Not even I remember it. :(

-Tom

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So; I watched Kill List and Bull essentially back-to-back. Apparently my Wheatleycred to date was/is pretty lacking having only seen Free Fire, which was a pretty great watch (though Wheatley really should’ve just let them go for that beer).

In doing so I’ve apparently also missed out on a lot of Neil Maskell, which is possibly the bigger crime - his Arby in the original UK Utopia series was, uhm… chilling. And then oddly touching? Suffice to say I think he portrays a pretty convincing sociopath.

I enjoyed both films, though I found Kill List a bit languid at the start and less satisfying in its conclusion whereas Bull grabs you by the horns pretty much from the get-go.

But; we can’t stop here, this is spoiler country.

So; I caught the cult angle of Kill List very early on - it likely tipped its hand too much when Gal’s girlfriend carved that symbol into the back of the mirror. I liked where it ended up but could see the inevitability of the showdown and final twist coming a mile away. Overall I felt it was trying to be way too coy and not quite pulling it off. The unanswered questions as to what exactly happened in the botched job in Kiev, why the targets ‘thank’ their killer(s) and who the targets even really are just kinda linger in an unsatisfying manner, intriguing though they may be in the moment. It sorta had a Midsommar/Hereditary vibe going there but didn’t really coalesce into anything all that insightful.

Bull has none of those issues, which makes for a more compelling narrative even once it reaches its conclusion. At that point we understand everyone’s motivation and character. I did not expect, even remotely, the supernatural twist ending - if there was any religious symbolism to suggest it, that went completely over my head.

Many will find that jarring, but I kinda like that it (maybe) answered my biggest question - why Bull bothered to let anyone live. Why maim (and ultimately kill) one drug dealer and let the other witness it and walk? Why let a coward and his two kids go free especially when said coward was the one to actually put flame to your home?

The devil recognises his own, I guess.

Oh, this is going to be a ‘me’ thing, maybe, but Bull really captures something I’ve not really felt anywhere else. Most British films are set in recognisable locations that I don’t have any particular emotional connection to. London (mainly). Upper class holdings in the countryside. Council housing. That sort of thing. Bull really moves the camera into the red-brick lower-middleclass houses that nestle awkwardly between our dirty city centres, verdant countryside and grimly oppressive grey skies. Then butchers people in the living room.

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That wasn’t his home, FYI. Just a disposable camper.

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Oh, I had the distinct impression he was living there [at least temporarily] after his split with Gemma. But you’re right, ‘home’ is probably too strong even if he was.

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They go retrieve him from the house with Aidan and we never see him at the camper otherwise that I recall, so I don’t think he had gone anywhere.

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Ah, that might just be my overactive imagination filling in too much.

There’s a scene toward the beginning where Gary is leaving the house after having sex with Gemma; Bull sneaks in and waits under the stairs. That gave me the impression he was no longer living there. I also thought they took him to the [his] caravan and got him drunk etc to make it look like an accident. But on a quick skim through you’re right, there’s nothing substantial to link them.

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SPOILERS AND I’M NOT BLURRING! If you’re still reading this thread and you haven’t seen the movie, well, that’s on you. I did my part trying to protect you in the original post. :)

@fox.ferro and @malkav11, I believe there’s a scene with Bull and Norm in the pub that establishes the living situation, that Bull still lives in the same house with Gary and Gemma. It’s only when he discovers Gemma is still using that he demands full custody of Aiden, which prompts the meeting with Norm at the pub. That leads, of course, to them taking him to the trailer after fetching him at the house where they all live. Remember that Bull refuses to leave with them, and instead drives out to meet them an hour later. Pretty ballsy reaction to a crime boss sending for you to get murdered!

What I loved about the movie wasn’t necessarily the supernatural angle, but how the movie gradually dances around it until the reveal. It’s a puzzle movie, really, and even a bit of a cheat. If you read the stupid synopsis on IMDB, it says, “Bull mysteriously returns home after a 10 year absence to seek revenge.” WTF, IMDB!

Because I don’t think the fact of the 10 years is known to the audience until Bull finds Aiden and we see a grown man. We don’t know how much time has passed because no one ever says. Instead, they just react with horror at seeing Bull. We think it’s because they know how brutal he is, and that’s certainly part of it. But the horror we don’t understand is that they had seen him killed 10 years ago, burned, shot, and buried. They had witnessed it with their own eyes. We don’t realize this until the end of the movie, when the two parallel narratives reach their finales: the trailer in the flashbacks and Bull attacking Gemma and Norm in current day. We thought we had been watching a movie about a guy who slipped out the back of a burning trailer and then immediately started tracking down his murderers. Instead, we’re watching a movie about the accounting for a ten-year-old sin, burned, buried, and all but forgotten.

So the question the movie raises, but doesn’t care to wholly answer, is what’s happened in the intervening 10 years. We find out what’s happened to Norm and his daughters. We find out that Clive and Marco have had children growing up. We find out Gemma left Gary. We find out Aiden has grown up and gotten addicted to heroin. But what’s happened to Bull in those 10 years since his death?

I’m pretty sure the conceit is that he’s just a normal man who bullied the devil into a deal in which he comes back to earth to save his son. It strikes me as very Flying Dutchman instead of Omen. I don’t think this is a movie about the devil incarnate bringing his son to Earth. Instead, I think Aiden is just a normal boy, just as Bull was a normal, albeit brutal and sociopathic, man. His return is supernatural, but it’s temporary, which is why he doesn’t care if anyone sees him walking into a crowded nightclub to brutalize a drug dealer or if his DNA is slathered all over a crime scene. He’s a supernatural Terminator. Before he kills Norm, Bull responds to something unintelligible Norm asks with “It’s a long story, how long you got?” At the end of the movie, he returns to the site where he was buried, presumably to resume his time in Hell?

At least that’s my read. I don’t think there’s anything supernatural in the flashbacks, which is why I don’t think he was ever the devil incarnate or even a demon. Before his death, everything is mundane.

However, there are three things that I’m not sure what to do with in terms of forming an interpretation of this movie:

One: When the lady priest at the church sees him, is the idea that she knows a demonic pact when she sees one? Or does she think she’s seeing an actual demon? I don’t think she thinks he’s the actual capital D devil, because she says something about “your kind”. But are we to infer from this scene that Bull is a demon? Because that’s how it feels from the strength of her reaction. But I think the idea is she’s just freaked out to see someone who has returned from Hell, which is why she thinks he’s seeking his own salvation.

Two: This one I don’t know what to do with. The opening scene before the title card, where Bull gets into a car with someone listening to opera (Verdi’s Macbeth adaptation), pays that person $100, gets a gun out of the glovebox, and then hops out of the car to shoot someone standing on the sidewalk. He then tosses the gun into the car and presumably walks off, much to the surprise (?) of the driver. During the “reveal montage” the driver asks Bull where he’s been, and Bull replies, “Hell.”

So what’s going on in that scene? Who did Bull kill? Who was the driver? This is presumably Bull’s return to save his son, because the next scene is Bull marveling at the carnival rides before paying a visit to Norm’s other daughter.

So what was that scene? Did Bull have to do a “job” to get information? Is this first kill someone from Norm’s crew? It looks like a white bearded guy who works at a mechanic’s shop, but I don’t know who that would be.

Three: I simply couldn’t catch some of the dialogue during the scene with Gemma while Norm is being murdered. Is the only information we learn in that scene that Aiden has gotten addicted to heroin? Because with the sobbing and yelling and accents, I think there’s information in that scene that I couldn’t discern. :(

-Tom

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You have some interesting movie watching ahead of you, my friend. I’m a little jealous.

-Tom

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I just want to rescue this out from under the blurring, because I love this observation so much!

-Tom

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(1) Oh, definitely a demon or something similar rather than the devil himself, IMO. If you’ve read (or, ha-ha, seen) Preacher, I got a very ‘Saint of Killers’ vibe from that scene, really.

(2) Firstly: A hunred dollars - yer avin a laff aincha?! Weers me free hunred quid?!
(As an aside though - I can accept that USD is the accepted currency in hell and thus all that Bull likely has on his person).

But it is a somewhat weak scene in the overall context - if that person was a member of Norm’s crew, their death is never mentioned and there aren’t any obvious candidates. Difficult to say what the motivation was.

(3) Yeah, I don’t think Aiden’s addiction is mentioned outside of that scene. The only other reveal is Gemma admitting that she was the one who got him addicted (rather than just passively allowing it to happen). But there’s not much detail and that’s probably open for interpretation.

The driver at the start tells us that Bull has returned after a 10 year absence. Sorry Tom, you need to work on your wacky British accents! (dollars!)

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Gah, you’re totally right. I just went back and rewatched it. I honestly can’t tell what the driver is saying after he tells Bull it’s “not far”, but you’re absolutely right that the words “back after ten years” are in there and I missed them. As well as the ‘Where have you been?’ ‘Hell’ exchange that’s repeated during the reveal montage! I wonder if it’s fair to say they’re muted and Paul Andrew Williams hopes you might miss them? That’s probably a real reach, but I think I mighht have experienced the movie differently if I’d caught the “ten years” reference.

It certainly would have made me wonder what Bull had been doing all that time, since I assumed he had only recently escaped the burning trailer. And you can imagine my confusion when he finally finds Aiden!

That’s why I feel it’s somehow part of a Faustian bargain. I wonder if Macbetto playing is any sort of clue. I might have to track down what part of the opera is playing during that scene. I think it’s just a duet between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but maybe there’s something in the libretto? Based on the ending of Cherry Tree Lane, I think Paul Andrew Williams might be into opera.

That’s all I could get from the scene, and it’s from Maskell yelling something along the lines of “You got him on the gear!” It’s a good thing I know what “gear” means or I’d have been really lost. But I don’t think I could understand a single thing the Gemma actress said. :(

-Tom

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And I would love some way to tell people who are talking about The Crow that they should watch this because it’s more or less the same story. But I can’t think how to tell them without spoiling the whole thing. :(

-Tom

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I was going to say, I think The Crow is a much more apt point of comparison, although obviously that one’s a lot more goth and a lot more stylized and comic-book-y (since that’s the source material). And honestly, the supernatural premise matters a lot more to it. Bull being back from the dead explains pieces of the puzzle, but it doesn’t really change the story meaningfully. Until you learn he’s been dead the whole time (which is very late indeed), it plays as a straight revenge story and you could excise that detail from the movie and it’d just be a little sloppier. There’s none of the Crow’s inhuman durability. As a fan of Kill List (and the Crow) I did find that a bit disappointing. Kill List appeals to me so much because it takes characters from one sort of story (crime thriller) and thrusts them out of their depth into something entirely different, only it takes us (and them) a while to realize it. Bull doesn’t do that, and from your pitch I was kinda expecting it to. From all the evidence Bull would have been just as terrifying, implacable and murderous if he had escaped his fate and returned the regular way.

All that said, I think it’s a terrific movie, quite likely better than both of the other movies being invoked in comparison, and I really enjoy Neil Maskell’s ability to switch between scary dead-eyed psycho and loving father, as well as the very mundane, down-to-earth version of organized crime we see here. I know that’s one of the things that made The Sopranos stand out - seeing mafiosos do regular everyday American citizen stuff and go to therapy and whatnot between gang wars and shakedowns and hits - but even there, Tony was very wealthy and living a life that reflects that, which most of us here don’t, I think, and the emphasis on retaining pieces of Italian culture was another layer of separation for me, at least. Here, well, working class British lifestyles feel mostly pretty familiar and, e.g. that family barbecue out back…I’ve been to that sort of thing! Granted, the women in my circles don’t have that particular approach to fashion, but other than that…

Indeed. Although I don’t think the desire was ever to kill him. He’s useful, he’s dangerous, and he’s one of them. It’s just that he’s not Norm’s blood. So when what Bull insists on and what Gemma wants conflict, Bull’s going to lose out. And even then Norm’s trying to smooth it over if he can. It just becomes clear he can’t, and it’s not safe to leave Bull a going concern at that point.

PS: I also couldn’t understand Gemma in that last scene with her. I didn’t even really get that Aidan had gone on heroin, I just inferred it from later scenes.

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Ah, that’s such an excellent comparison, malk! I never watched Sopranos, but I know well that quality that James Gandolfini had, so I can totally see what you’re talking about. That’s lovely.

I love so much the moment when Norm says, “I gotta ask you this, Bull. What are you gonna do if ever you get out of this?”

“Honestly?” Bull asks.

“Yeah,” Norm says, with a forced lightness. “You’re an honest guy.”

“If I ever get out of this, I’ll fucking kill every one of you.”

Then the actor playing Norm gives him a kind of half smile and says, “Yeah, I thought so.” He understands Bull completely, because they’re both driven by devotion to their children, and that’s why Norm’s next act is to turn to the woman for whom he’s doing this – his daughter – and verify that she’s sure.

David Hayman, an actor with 148 credits under his belt going back to 1966, is so good in this movie as Norm. It’s absolutely arrresting when he walks into the room before we know who he is and he sits down and locks eyes with his daughter, dismissing Gary. That’s one hell of an entrance!

I love, too, when Bull is threatening Clive in the pub, and Norm’s response is, “Cut it out, you two.” When Clive isn’t even doing anything! Norm is such a wonderfully avuncular but ruthless crime boss.

I think the words “you got him on the gear” were literally all I could make out in that scene.

-Tom