El ángel malvado

I think part of the reason why 'The Good Son' is barely remembered is because it deals with a side to humanity that no-one really wants to accept in that not all children are sweet little innocents, pure as the driven snow. It's not very comfortable watching a film that shows sociopaths-- people born without the ability to feel guilt and empathise with others-- are born, not made and their dangerous traits are apparent even in childhood. 'The Good Son' revolves around Mark, a motherless boy of twelve who is sent to stay with his Uncle Wallace, Aunt Susan and two cousins, twelve-year-old Henry and six-year-old Connie. At first, Mark revels in the visit that takes his mind off his recent bereavement but he soon starts to realise that Henry is a sociopath whose parents are blind to his dark, violent side. It is a film that pulls no punches in just how malevolent Henry is and how easily he will pick off anyone who dares to interfere with his twisted sense of fun.

Macaulay Culkin was excellent as the angelic-looking Henry whose boyish cuteness hide his true nature and his performance here proves he could have been one of the few child actors who graduated into a successful young adult actor had his personal life not been such a mess. It really was chilling seeing the child I was so used to seeing in comedies being so emotionally cold. But it is Elijah Wood's Mark who gives the film heart. Young Wood, only eleven years old when he filmed this, delivered a great performance as a young boy faced with the awful truth and desperate to stop Henry while juggling his grief over losing his mother. The scene where Mark is convinced Henry has poisoned the food is a perfect example of how Wood portrayed Mark's desperation, hysteria and helplessness in the face of his cousin's evil.

However, one of the flaws of the film is that is a bit choppy, jumping from scene-to-scene without giving you a feel for the other characters, which is a shame because this is one film where you do need to have an understanding of just how Henry's nature affects all those around him and how he gets away with it all. I read the novelisation of the film by Todd Strasser before seeing the film so it's all the more noticeable for me. The book not only gives greater insight into Mark's budding fraternal friendship with Connie and his need to seek a mother in Susan but it also shows Susan's growing awareness to the monster Henry is and how she feels when she is made to choose between Mark and her murderous child.

Overall, this film is enjoyable enough for a psychological thriller (although a few TV detective shows have done this idea in a slicker way) and it is nice to see a film that doesn't take a softly-softly attitude when dealing with the matter of children who kill. However, the ending was a bit of a cop-out as there could have been so many other avenues to explore had things ended differently for Henry (what should be done with sociopathic children? How do decent, loving families deal with such a child?). Those who do expect a bit more from their films will probably be disappointed.

In many ways this is just a standard thriller. How I loathe the word "thriller". It suggests roller-coasters; and the genre it denotes, at its best, deals in quiet tension. Where was I? Yes: standard thriller. A is really an evil person, intent on performing great harm in the future; B knows this but can't convince anyone else. I heard that sigh. But make A and B children, on the verge of adolescence, and not only is this tired formula invigorated, but it makes a great deal more sense. (Especially if B is in the slightly awkward position of a cousin on an extended visit.) The creaky old scenes where B goes to the police and either he is strangely incoherent or the police are strangely obtuse, are gone. There is now a perfectly good reason why B can't go to the police, or indeed anyone. Nor is there anything strange about the obtuseness of A's parents. The rotten adult seems so commonplace that we scarcely bat an eyelid; the rotten child, who is in fact far more commonplace, we like to pretend doesn't exist.

So I'm glad Hollywood took this step. I also, for the most part, like the way the step has been taken. B has no accomplices - he must battle A alone - and his plight is keenly felt. There's an air of plausibility about it all. Elijah Wood is an unusually good boy, Macaulay Culkin is an unusually bad boy; both look perfectly real. (Wood, who has the harder task, does especially well.)

The climax - or what is meant to be the climax - is HIGHLY contrived. It will probably come as a shock that the writers chose something at once so obvious and so ludicrous. The mood of the audience I saw this with - it may just have been my mood - was one of grudging acceptance, granted only because we had been treated so well in the events leading up to it.

This is one of my favorite movies. Macaulay Culkin was excellent in this. The Good Son is about Mark(Elijah Wood), a young boy suffering in the recent loss of his mother, going to visit his aunt, uncle, and two cousins in Maine while his dad takes a business trip to Tokyo. Cousin Henry Evans(Macaulay Culkin) is Mark's age and they soon become good friends and have loads of fun each day, but soon Mark starts to see another side of Henry when they start putting some of Henry's ideas into action, including throwing a dummy called Mr.Highway over an overpass that causes a huge multi car wreck and a big smile on Henry's face, and shooting a dog with a homemade gun. Mark starts to think Henry deliberatly tried to kill his liitle brother years ago, and is plotting to kill the rest of the family. This movie is a bit disturbing, but good all the same.

Rated R for Violence and Language.

THE GOOD SON is one of many psycho-thrillers that were made in the early 1990s in the wake of the success of the likes of FATAL ATTACTION, BASIC INSTINCT and THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE. Most of these could be easily categorised by the type of person who was the villain, i.e. 'bad cop' (UNLAWFUL ENTRY), 'bad neighbour' (PACIFIC HEIGHTS), 'bad husband' (SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY). THE GOOD SON is, as you'd guess from the title, about a bad kid.

Said kid is Macauley Culkin, a wonderful piece of casting against type by the producers. So long we've had to put up with Culkin in his sickly-sweet roles but here he portrays somebody very different indeed and, inevitably, this turns out to be the best performance of his career. Culkin is excellent, truly portraying a character beyond his years, and he helps to make the movie.

It helps that everything else is right, too. The script focuses on realism throughout, and there's plenty of characterisation to make the viewer feel truly grounded in the experience. Aside from the ending, things don't get over the top with the style or direction. There are a handful of set-pieces which really work (like the bit with the bridge), and some incredible stunt work that left me breathless, like the whole bit with the tree house. As somebody with a fear of heights, such moments turned my legs to jelly.

Elijah Wood made a point of appearing in plenty of twee kid's films during the 1990s (FREE WILLY anyone?) but this is one of his most interesting movies from that decade. David Morse is typically good as Wood's father. The script stays grounded throughout, the psychological insight is as interesting as the thriller aspects of the story, and it all finishes in a satisfying way that goes against Hollywood convention. Good stuff.

I've heard about this movie for years but I have never decided to check it out until this past weekend. I thought it was going to be average 90's crap with not much going for it at all. I was wrong and I'm glad I was. It was actually very creepy and atmospheric with a lot of very intense scenes and fantastic build ups.

Macaulay Culkin is very good as the disturbed son. I thought that Wood was great as well and the rest of the cast was pretty good but some of the parents' roles were a little iffy. I thought the story was well done and interesting and most of all, kept me entertained.

This is a movie that would go good on a rainy afternoon. It's not brilliant but it is interesting and pretty creepy.