Bradbury Bear Fire Ranger (1998) User Reviews

Everyone loves a good revenge story and that's what Bradbury is.

[p-prior · 7/10 · 14 July 2005]

A saw this film at the Vibe Bar on Brick Lane and it went down a storm. The film- makers were standing at the back scratching their heads, not able to understand why the film had gone down so well. In their minds they had written the film off. It's has a gripping almost hypnotic story-line - this geeky kid buys a computer game Bradbury Bear-Fire Ranger which seems to be based on good IL' Smokey the Bear. The cavalier shop assistant treats him with derision and makes comments about him not having a girl-friend. A classic line - "You'll have his parents in tomorrow." "Parents? He hasn't got any parents. He was hatched in a lab somewhere." The kid finds to his horror that the game doesn't work and he keeps coming back to get it replaced, but the shop assistant keeps treating him worse and worse. Hilarious. Then the kid gets nasty. Bradbury is far from perfect, but it has lots of spirit - and is a lot of fun. Everyone loves a good revenge story and that's what Bradbury is.

The film-makers who made this are insane.

[j-phillips-1 · 9/10 · 21 July 2005]

A lot of British short films made at around the late 90s are a little bit wacky, sensible, safe and boring. Bradbury is very different - I am fully convinced that the people behind it are insane - in a brilliant way.

It's a repetitive story-line - this kids comes back to get his video game replaced I think four times, but somehow it's not tedious, and the tension and humour just builds.

David Doyle as the kid is just brilliant, charismatic,funny and a lot of range. He starts off all meek and geeky but in the end...hey I don't want to spoil it.

If you get a chance to see Bradbury Bear, I urge that you do . In a world full of safe and homogenised movies, it's not to see some lunatics make a film for a change.