Le bon fils

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.

I was actually really surprised at the ratings of the film, so I looked at many of the reviews before putting mine down. Maybe I was missing some pretty horrible aspects to the movie. So I watched the movie again and I read the reviews. I think one of the interesting things was that people rated this movie really low because they didn't like the concept of an evil child or they added, there was no WHY concept to the reasons why the character did the things he did.

I think I was mostly surprised at the "Why" concept. Did people really not understand that this kid felt really powerful controlling the fate of others? It was quite clear that the mean kid did not like being undermined. It was in my opinion very well introduced. At first, his enjoyment in his actions were very minor due to his first time. It seemed to me that the first time he performed his bad deeds to his brother, he might have actually been scarred or stunned. Because for a while when little Frodo enters the scene, nothing has actually happened to indicate he is a terrible child. Its not until his mother treats Frodo like her own child that Macually starts to use his will to force things the way he wants. I see similarities with how kids these days press their parents into getting what they want.

I think its important to recognize the scene where little Frodo goes to the therapist and asks her about why someone could be bad for no reason, just because he likes to be bad. I think this is where people kind of go, "yeah, this movie is flawed, there's no such thing." But remember, little Frodo wasn't looking down the staircase at his mother hugging another son. Its all about perspective. It can be concluded that the bad son is probably the spoiled child, and acts up in extreme ways to get what he wants because it worked before. We have two polar characters. One character is completely helpless and his fate is controlled by the other characters in this movie, where there is Culkin, whom has deep control of his life and his wants.

On another note, kids doing horrible things to animals or killing other kids is not a unheard of concept. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that there are certain mentalities that cannot be explained but diagnosed with mental disorders. People in our age have been brainwashed into thinking that kids are completely innocent in the world. Which is funny when you reflect how many times in your younger life you have laughed at someone and probably made them feel really bad, even though you didn't want to. As kids we actually hurt others more than we'd like to admit, we just choose not to admit 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.

An interesting idea: parents having to deal with a psychopathic child. Believe it or not, such a situation is not uncommon. And Culkin does an excellent job. His coolness, his sudden changes of approach without any apparent shifting of gears, his complete lack of emotional reaction - which have been interpreted by some reviewers as poor acting - are actually very realistic. Personally, I find his calm and apparently effortless demeanour more frightening than the ravings of the lunatics in many other horror films.

Unfortunately, the plot lacks all credibility. Certainly psychopaths are excellent con-men (in fact, they are the most typical con-men) but it is absurd to believe that a child like this could have covered his tracks so well that his parents do not even suspect that there is something wrong with him. Even more ridiculous is that his behaviour towards his little sister - whom he hates enough to try to kill her - has been so good in the past that she trusts him completely. The cliches of the over-dramatic ending are also a bit much. A pity, because there is much of value in the film.