User Reviews

Bouncers, most people take them for granted as they slip in and out of nightclubs but they are omnipresent, like the fixtures in the bar. This delightfully interesting film takes a close look at the day to day lifes of the men that enjoy inflicting physical pain upon others. You would expect men with such a strong predilection for violence would live lifes of constant brutality but the film manages to show the many facets that make up these men that do not fit in. It would be too easy to ridicule and dismiss but Steven Cantor manages to rise above that to show the spiritual, tender and even banal bits of these men. You find yourself beginning to identify with them, rooting for Black Prince to get a better job, giggling at the DeMaio twins worship of Sly Stallone and liking the garrulous Guv'nor. In turns touching, amusing and frightening but never boring. Some violence is shown in the context of the job but it doesn't feel gratuitous, merely the thing that these men do best.

This is one of the most boring films I have ever seen, for 81 minutes all you get is loads of tough looking guys talking about themselves and their experiences of being doormen. There is not nearly enough violence or footage of them actually doing their job to make this watchable, if there was some actual scraps and some real action going on it might grab your interest, but the bouncers themselves have no charisma or presence to make you want to give a s**t about what happens to them or anyone else. The doorman King is such a smug ass that all he talks about are the things offered to him such as blow jobs, cash etc' ,and the fact that none of things ever happen to him doesn't seem to alert him to the fact that he is in his own little dream world. Boring, boring, BORING. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I rented Bounce: Behind the Velvet Rope.

The first thing I found myself wondering was how much of this was totally faked and staged. Not saying any of it was, but this was awfully hard to believe. How much of acting tough is just show business, and knowing some quick moves?

The Black Prince guy, by night worked in a strip club where he occasionally had to toss out men who went too far with the girls. Then he lives with his Mother and buys her a BMW and wanted to buy her a house. His Mom was great, raising him into something in a world that was not so great. Was this real? The guy came off as a very nice guy really, maybe a bit too nice, and it makes me think they had to turn up the volume to make a movie and that it was not that real.

Then there were these two brothers who seemed like they were always trying to joke and be tough. When asked what they would do if they weren't bouncers they replied "cartoonists" ... both of them. It is like they did not have a personality between them. One had gotten his bouncer certification, the other could not certify because he has a felony on his record and they both idolized Sly Stallone which seems reasonable for them.

There was Lenny McClean who like many of these men had a horrible youth, and had to live in a very violent world. Lenny had a charm and magnetism, though his Brando imitation was laughable, he seemed to have a good understanding that the real acting was making ones way in the world. He had taken no acting lessons, yet was the most successful of the bunch, no longer a bouncer. After watching the movie they let you know as he hit success he developed brain cancer and died. This is hard to take after seeing a very human guy that you start to like throughout the movie.

Some of these people seemed very interesting and intelligent. One possibility was that the physical aspect of their lives pushed them to be more aggressive and confident.

One guy was married with a pretty wife, but she has really short hair, and seemed to be really proud that she had a huge hulking husband, though it make him attractive to other women wherever they went. I found myself wondering about why her hair was so short, did her over tattooed husband force her to tone down while at the same time he toned up like a peacock. This was a guy who talked incessantly about how he loved violence, and lived to attack people. One thing the movie was not super clear on was the "statud" of these men. Were they losers, or some of them seemed quite successful.

One man owned his own security company. The successful men "seemed" to be the smart ones, who were not overly violent, yet the viewer could not tell because you never know what is for real.

I guess I would call this a documentary and say it was interesting, and successful in the sense that it gets you to think about things you would not normally consider and piques your interest to know more, and even at the "reptilian" level gets one to think about violence, attraction, the link between violence and sex, some very basic things ... of course the movie is short on specifics, or answers, but it was fun and manages to bring out the attractive side of most of these guys even though they are trying like mad to appear tough and cold.

Steve Cantor's documentary on bouncers is one of the few things that ever changed my mind on something. I don't go to clubs - never have, and don't plan on it - but I still always assumed bouncers must be bad people who are perhaps unintelligent. After seeing this, I felt like a bad person for making such an unfounded assumption.

Through vignettes cut into several sections, Cantor shows bouncers at home and on the job, and interviews them on just about everything. Every single man interviewed here comes off as a very decent human being, with the Guv'nor and Black Prince being the standouts. I'm glad I caught this.