Mark Reviews Movies: GOOD BOYS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 15, 2019

Everything seems so monumental when you're not quite a teenager but old enough to have some idea that there's a life beyond the kiddie stuff. That's what Good Boys, a very funny comedy about the misadventures of a trio of 11-year-olds, gets right. The whole plot revolves around an upcoming party, held by the coolest kid in middle school, where only the coolest of the cool kids will have an entire basement to themselves. Shock of shocks and terror of terrors, though, it's a kissing party.

Our little heroes have spent their pre-pubescent lives playing video games and card games and riding their bikes around town. Now that they're going through puberty, kissing a girl seems like the best thing in the world, but kissing a girl in the wrong way would be a fate worse than death. Maybe the video games, card games, and bike-riding don't seem too bad, compared to the potential laughter, shame, gossip, and everything else that could come with a very public, very awkward first kiss.

The film, written by Lee Eisenberg and director Gene Stupnitsky, very much understands that these are the highest of stakes for these three kids, although only one of them really seems to care about things like kissing at this moment in time. He's Max (Jacob Tremblay), who has had a crush on a girl in his class for a whole two weeks. This matters more to him than almost anything else in his life right now, except, perhaps, for his best friends Lucas (Keith L. Williams) and Thor (Brady Noon).

The friends haven't quite reached the point where they're thinking about kissing. Lucas still like his card games, as well as rules and telling the truth (even when it could get him into trouble), and Thor really like to sing, although it makes the popular kids think he's trying too hard. None of that matters right now, though. In fact, the party and any kind of success at kissing matter to Lucas and Thor because it matters so much to their best friend.

If all of this sounds incredibly and naïvely and sweetly innocent, that's the wrong impression one should take from this description of the film. It's raunchy and expletive-laden, filled with sex toys and glimpses of pornography (just the setup for us, although the kids watch enough to realize that the actors won't be doing any traditional kissing to show proper technique) and a doll that the kids are convinced is used for CPR training—although the sticky lips and presence of hair in its mouth tell a completely different story.

The primary gag, which is the reason the film is as funny as it is, is that these kids are just aware enough about sex to know that it's a thing. They know some of the official terminology to prove they don't know what they're talking about, and they know enough slang to turn those terms into malapropisms. The three have no clue, though, that the boxful of "weapons" in Thor's parents' bedroom closet aren't actually weapons. They probably should have gotten a nice wash with some strong soap, too, before the kids handle them, brandishing them to intimidate an adult stranger who has come to buy one of their prized playing cards.

It's that ignorance—so simple and so accurate—that's the main reason the comedy here works. If these kids knew of what they speak and with what they play around, we'd be horrified. Because they don't, we have no choice but to laugh.

The party is one MacGuffin. The other is a drone belonging to Max's father (Will Forte), who's away on business for a couple of days. The friends decide to use it to spy on Max's high-schooler neighbor Hannah (Molly Gordon), who has a caddish college boyfriend (played by Josh Caras), so they'll probably get a good look at some kissing with the drone's camera.

Instead, Hannah and her friend Lily (Midori Francis) take the drone to teach the kids a lesson about spying on girls, and Max steals Hannah's purse as leverage to get it back. The purse has some recreational drugs in it, so obviously, Hannah and her friend want it back for a concert—and also because kids shouldn't be wandering around town with illegal substances.

Thus begins a long chase (The girls can't possibly catch them on their "fast bikes," as all kids call their regular bikes), a race to get to a store (a whole four miles away and, in the film's most unfortunately out-of-place sequence, across a busy expressway, which ends with only car damage—but still feels wholly too dangerous compared to the rest of the gags) to buy a new drone before Max's dad gets home, and a truant day away from school for the boys to bond—and maybe even realize that their young lives are heading in different directions. The young actors are quite good, with Williams being a standout as the poor kid who's struggling with his parents' announcement of getting divorced and probably too decent for his own good (At one point, his parents think he's lying about what has happened, even though he's telling them everything).

There's some really simple and, hence, easily effective comedic material here (such as how Lucas is the angel and Thor is the devil on Max's shoulders), but even while its mind is in the gutter, Good Boys has its heart in the right place, too. All of this matters so much to these kids, because every joy and every fear seems like the whole world when you're 11.

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