When a friend pointed out a preview on Youtube, my response was "cute but decadent." After seeing more clips and outtakes, the movie began to look promising, and I entered the cinema with high hopes, really wanting to like it.
Every boy nowadays should be well warned, before his first day of school one fears, that these are not the best of times to be one. He will have a long uphill fight and sooner or later be blamed and punished (not to mention drugged) for perfectly normal behavior. Feminism, whose claimed goal of "equality" rings hollower every year, has stacked the deck heavily against him. To name just one way: thanks to various educational practices, he now has at least 1/3 less chance than his female classmates of getting into college. Lotsa luck finding a feminist who will admit that this situation is in any way unjust, problematic, or unpropitious for society's future. Furthermore, he is best advised to postpone indefinitely a relationship with the opposite sex. This is the advice not of prudery but prudence, just as prudence avoids Russian roulette. Read the not-so-fine print about the probability of divorce, who usually initiates it, and the usual fate of a husband in family court-- assuming that a relationship even gets as far as marriage before a guy is me-tooed. In summary: Masculinity itself is toxic, haven't you heard?
So a film whose title asserts that there is even such a thing as a good boy and undertakes a sympathetic look at his life should make a welcome contribution to the culture. But lamentably, in this case it stops there. With a heavy sigh, I must return to my verdict at first sight.
By "decadent" I'm not referring to a decline in morals. Yeah, way too much dirty language comes out of these youngsters' mouths. Once in awhile it is funny or otherwise purposeful, but usually just gratuitous. As Peter Hitchens wrote, some people use profanity for punctuation, and one suspects that it is the only punctuation they know. Never was there a sillier misnomer than calling it "strong language." It is actually weak language. And this applies to screenplays as well. Although I would not exaggerate it as a moral violation, it is a tangible example of decadence: a line has been crossed in a very cheap manner, after which what in this way can anyone do for an encore?
Otherwise, this film is conspicuously moral. Look at the checklist. Racial equality, check: one of the three close friends among our young protagonists is African-American. Drugs, check: don't take them or deal them, and at least consider reporting anyone who does. Sex, check: get a girl's consent before making a move. And when you're eleven years old, daydream about giving a girl a kiss someday. Sweet.
No, by decadence I have in mind an artistic crudity, insincerity, and shameless loss of subtlety and craft that eventually becomes a race to the bottom. After just five minutes I was thinking, "this director doesn't know how to make a feature film." But it's been awhile since I've even bothered to see a Hollywood movie on account of the same traits, so maybe he's a typical contemporary Hollywood director, how should I know? Am I just showing my age?
The issue is style. First, the pacing is absurdly frenetic throughout. Second, these boys simply screamed much of their dialogue. Given the highly competitive market for child actors, I'm sure that casting came up with more talent than we see here-- if they didn't, it's sheer incompetence again. More likely, the star trio has talent but the director never brought it out of them. The occasional exceptions to the yelling appear in tender scenes, which come up abruptly: Suddenly the camera pans into a close-up and the music changes. Now This Is A Tender Scene, See? Then after a moment it's back to the razzle-dazzle rat-race. Put all this together and you get utter failure to suspend a viewer's disbelief. The effect is reminiscent of minimalist music which is obnoxious when it takes a moment that sounds like a symphony orchestra's reaching the climax of a score, and then repeats the passage twenty times, so that it all becomes a spoof.
For those who enjoyed this movie: fine, more power to you, I won't hold it against you. But do you have any idea what a starvation diet you are subsisting on? Will another film about this age group ever rival Stand By Me (1986)? For my money, Hearts in Atlantis (2001) almost stands by it. Granted, Gene Stupnisky's aim in Good Boys was more comic. But even effective comedy requires having summoned some emotional involvement with plot and characters. If it's not irreverent to suggest comparing it against these two predecessors, doing so will make it obvious how signally he failed.
Every boy nowadays should be well warned, before his first day of school one fears, that these are not the best of times to be one. He will have a long uphill fight and sooner or later be blamed and punished (not to mention drugged) for perfectly normal behavior. Feminism, whose claimed goal of "equality" rings hollower every year, has stacked the deck heavily against him. To name just one way: thanks to various educational practices, he now has at least 1/3 less chance than his female classmates of getting into college. Lotsa luck finding a feminist who will admit that this situation is in any way unjust, problematic, or unpropitious for society's future. Furthermore, he is best advised to postpone indefinitely a relationship with the opposite sex. This is the advice not of prudery but prudence, just as prudence avoids Russian roulette. Read the not-so-fine print about the probability of divorce, who usually initiates it, and the usual fate of a husband in family court-- assuming that a relationship even gets as far as marriage before a guy is me-tooed. In summary: Masculinity itself is toxic, haven't you heard?
So a film whose title asserts that there is even such a thing as a good boy and undertakes a sympathetic look at his life should make a welcome contribution to the culture. But lamentably, in this case it stops there. With a heavy sigh, I must return to my verdict at first sight.
By "decadent" I'm not referring to a decline in morals. Yeah, way too much dirty language comes out of these youngsters' mouths. Once in awhile it is funny or otherwise purposeful, but usually just gratuitous. As Peter Hitchens wrote, some people use profanity for punctuation, and one suspects that it is the only punctuation they know. Never was there a sillier misnomer than calling it "strong language." It is actually weak language. And this applies to screenplays as well. Although I would not exaggerate it as a moral violation, it is a tangible example of decadence: a line has been crossed in a very cheap manner, after which what in this way can anyone do for an encore?
Otherwise, this film is conspicuously moral. Look at the checklist. Racial equality, check: one of the three close friends among our young protagonists is African-American. Drugs, check: don't take them or deal them, and at least consider reporting anyone who does. Sex, check: get a girl's consent before making a move. And when you're eleven years old, daydream about giving a girl a kiss someday. Sweet.
No, by decadence I have in mind an artistic crudity, insincerity, and shameless loss of subtlety and craft that eventually becomes a race to the bottom. After just five minutes I was thinking, "this director doesn't know how to make a feature film." But it's been awhile since I've even bothered to see a Hollywood movie on account of the same traits, so maybe he's a typical contemporary Hollywood director, how should I know? Am I just showing my age?
The issue is style. First, the pacing is absurdly frenetic throughout. Second, these boys simply screamed much of their dialogue. Given the highly competitive market for child actors, I'm sure that casting came up with more talent than we see here-- if they didn't, it's sheer incompetence again. More likely, the star trio has talent but the director never brought it out of them. The occasional exceptions to the yelling appear in tender scenes, which come up abruptly: Suddenly the camera pans into a close-up and the music changes. Now This Is A Tender Scene, See? Then after a moment it's back to the razzle-dazzle rat-race. Put all this together and you get utter failure to suspend a viewer's disbelief. The effect is reminiscent of minimalist music which is obnoxious when it takes a moment that sounds like a symphony orchestra's reaching the climax of a score, and then repeats the passage twenty times, so that it all becomes a spoof.
For those who enjoyed this movie: fine, more power to you, I won't hold it against you. But do you have any idea what a starvation diet you are subsisting on? Will another film about this age group ever rival Stand By Me (1986)? For my money, Hearts in Atlantis (2001) almost stands by it. Granted, Gene Stupnisky's aim in Good Boys was more comic. But even effective comedy requires having summoned some emotional involvement with plot and characters. If it's not irreverent to suggest comparing it against these two predecessors, doing so will make it obvious how signally he failed.