Mad props to Kelly Wand for chosing Buddy Revel as a bully. I love 3 O’Clock High, and Revel is easily one of my choices.
As to Revell talking Jerry (Seizmasko’s character) into the fight, Jerry was getting out of it through straight bribery. He robs the school supply store (that he helps run), tries to pay off the super tough school football start to fight Revel, and Revell destroys him. So Jerry attempts to use the three or four hundred dollars to bribe Buddy instead. This leads to my favorite sub-plot in the movie: Phillip Baker Hall (!!!) shows up as the detective who comes in to investigate and he is playing everything deadly serious. He rattles the shit out of Jerry in his only scene in the movie and it’s amazing.
I just love this movie. It’s part wish fulfillment but Kelly is right it’s also kind of surreal. And Jerry isn’t the traditional loser. He’s got a girlfriend to open the movie, and gets along well with his particular peer group (admittedly, AV club types and the people who run the school store, and his super weirdo girlfriend). But there’s this sense throughout the entire movie - and this includes the awesome ending - that Jerry is in over his head and doing everything he can to just try and keep his head above water.
Anyhoo, haven’t finished yet (I’ve got something on the schedule) but my other favorites:
Kreese and Johnny in Karate Kid, a tale of two bullies.
Johnny is sort of a classic bully, the Big Man On Campus/athlete type. But there are details that I like. He and Ali are already broken up (unsurprisingly, he’s a super jerk) at the start of the movie. Daniel is egged on to fight in the beach scene, in part because his new buddy thinks he knows some real karate (weirdly, the buddy is dropped from the movie after this). Johnny is also a ringleader but the rest of the Kobra Kai are only committed to certain levels. Bobby tries to stop the fighting during the pivotal post Hallween dance scene (and wants to try and beat Daniel legitimately before ultimately giving in to Kreese’s order to “sweep the leg”). Tommy will do anything Dutch and Johnny do I expect. Dutch seems like he’s going to get busted trying to carry H into Malaysia during a spring break trip with his frat brothers and disappear into a Singaporian jail (seriously, Dutch’s life is going to effectively end amid many felonies). I love Daniel’s attempt to snag the Kai with a history lecture backfiring.
And then there’s Kreese, part of the reason Johnny is the way he is. He’s the crazy asshole athlete parent well before that became a thing, except he runs a dojo and it’s rubbing off in the worst way on 4 people (moreso 3 of them, even though Bobby does ultimately sweep the leg). He’s Andrew Clark’s (Breakfeast club) father. I think a lot of sports movie antagonists since are based in part on him (e.g. Kilmer in Varsity Blues). Johnny could be forgiven (And even gets a redemption arc a few decades later, I understand it). Kreese cannot, because he has power on a level a peer bully does not. And he is abusing it big time.
Shit I forgot what I was going to chose as my other one.