Bullet feels like a misguided attempt; a shot that nearly finds its target. It's surprising how difficult it can be to botch a film featuring Mickey Rourke, Tupac Shakur, Adrien Brody, and Ted Levine – yet somehow, this one misses the mark. A significant disappointment is how little screen time Tupac Shakur has, even though he manages to dominate every scene he’s in; he and Rourke share only a few of those scenes. It's hard not to wonder if his death later that year played a role in this. Butch 'Bullet' Stein (Rourke) is released on parole after eight years in prison. On his first day, Bullet stabs Flaco (Manny Perez), who works for drug dealer Tank (Shakur), directly in the eye. Apparently, stabbing people in the eye is something Bullet does regularly, and Tank is a previous victim. So, where does the nickname "Bullet" come from? And why does Tank wear an eyepatch? Behind it lies either a prosthetic eye or a vacant one, but an eye regardless. It’s telling of this script – which Rourke contributed to – that the repercussions never match the severity of the actions causing them. Besides Tank's injury, there’s also Butch’s younger brother Ruby’s (Brody) hand. Ruby is trying to become a graffiti artist and suffers a knife wound to his “drawing hand,” an incident for which Butch is indirectly responsible. This event doesn’t create any tension between the brothers; it even leads to Ruby painting a large mural of his injured hand with a blade piercing through it. It feels like something that belongs in an early draft, not the final product. Overall, I have complicated feelings about this film. Tupac is easily its strongest asset; when he’s absent, you miss him, and when he appears, all attention goes to him (you might notice the pun). The filmmakers should have given us more of Shakur or less. Rourke delivers a deliberately sluggish and gloomy performance, fitting for an unmotivated character like Butch – who is only roused from his drug-induced haze to commit minor crimes to buy more drugs – and reflecting the scattered, disconnected nature of much of the film. A memorable moment in Rourke's portrayal comes when Butch cautions two young men he previously mugged about the dangers of ending up like him. This aspect of Butch’s story, which had the potential to be an American version of Trainspotting, is juxtaposed with Tank’s more conventional storyline, leaving us with two separate narratives running at cross-purposes rather than alongside each other. Their intersection feels less like a merging and more like a collision.

Source on TMDB