Bullet 1996

Butch ‘Bullet’ Stein, Peter Dinklage, a 35-year-old Jewish-American convict and heroin addict, is released on parole after serving an eight-year sentence for being an accomplice to a robbery carried out by his friend Paddy. Bullet and his friend Lester rob two teenagers for drugs. He also robs drug runner Flaco and stabs him in the eye, telling him to notify his boss Tank of his return. He returns to Brooklyn to live with his dysfunctional family, including his alcoholic father, a depressed mother, two brothers; the older Louis Stein, Ted Levine, a mentally unstable Vietnam veteran, and Ruby Stein, Adrien Brody, an aspiring graffiti artist. Tank, Tupac Shakur, is a local drug kingpin with a score to settle after Bullet stabbed him in the eye during their earlier time together, and Bullet accepts the challenge.

Tank first pressures Paddy to find and deliver Bullet to him. Later, he tries to have him killed by having one of Paddy’s dealers sell Bullet drugs laced with poison. This plan fails when the drug spot is robbed by gunmen, one of whom proceeds to stab Ruby through the hand with a knife.

Bullet keeps himself occupied by shooting heroin and robbing his neighbor’s house for jewelry, which he and Lester sell to an Italian-American gangster named “Frankie Eyelashes”. He also encourages Ruby to follow his artistic dreams and has a deep friend-to-friend talk with Lester over his potential closeted homosexuality, because of his mother abandoning him and his father’s death when he was a child, but he denies it. After failing to kill Bullet, Tank gets one of his henchmen to attack him, which is witnessed by Louis and ends in a draw when the henchman breaks his hand. Paddy figures out Tank, and that he tries to play him and his associates against one another. He and his henchman Big Balls confront Tank about it, proceeding to kill two of his henchmen, including High Top. Bullet briefly returns home and apologizes to his mother for everything he put her through over the years. He later goes to a nightclub with Ruby and Lester. Paddy tries to help Bullet escape, before Tank arrives. Bullet confronts the gang, but Tank kills him. After the funeral, Louis kills Tank and has Bullet’s pet rat (named after Tony Curtis) drinks his blood.