The Wolfpack

'The Wolfpack' doesn't come together

'The Wolfpack' is a film like no other. Sometimes that works well as it did in 'Inception', 'Pan's Labyrinth' and 'Blue Velvet.' At other times, it fails horribly, like it did in one of David Lynch's latest films (I stopped keeping up after a couple terrible films), 'Inland Empire.' 'The Wolfpack' is not completely terrible. It is interesting and takes on a unique subject. However, the film lacks focus and doesn't address the issues it highlights in any concrete manner.

I have the sense the director, Crystal Moselle, just ran into the family somewhere and decided to film them on a lark. Then after a couple of years, she decided to make a movie of it because graduation time in film school required her to present a film and the footage of nine people holed up in a Lower East Side tenement apartment was the only material she had available. Point is, there was no forethought in what the director/creator was doing, and it shows in the film.

Don't get me wrong. The film is interesting, and it's completely pointless. It's not quite surreal enough to stand on its own; it's far too repetitive for that. A dramatic moment in the film is when five of the brothers finally step out of the apartment together and see a film in a theater. That's it. While it might be dramatic for the brothers, the film doesn't convey that. The brothers also wonder aimlessly around Coney Island, and yes, the whole family takes an outing to a farm.

As a teacher I once had was fond of asking when I presented a paper, "So what?" So what indeed. With a subject this compelling, it's a shame there was only documentation of random repetitiveness. That isn't enough.

Rating: Rent it. It's been a long time since I intensely desired that a film end. It wasn't because I was uncomfortable with the subject, it was the feeling that I was ultimately just watching paint dry that made me want to leave. It's hard to believe that the film is only 80 minutes long.

Although the feelings of claustrophobia in the film's apartment work well on a large screen, there is not enough in the film to make it worth seeing in the theater. However, it wouldn't be a bad rental or better yet, a good sociological treatise. A cursory view of articles about the film tell us far more about the family than the film does, and that's a shame.

Peace, Tex Shelters

The subjects of the new documentary "The Wolfpack" have to be some of the most odd people I've seen put to film all year. The individuals I'm talking about are a group of brothers who, throughout their childhood, were shut off from society and forced to stay in their New York City apartment. Being home-schooled and in a unique state of seclusion - in which they only got outside nine or ten times a year - they formed a religious love of movies. Without internet and with plenty of time on their hands, they compiled homemade scripts of their most treasured films (which range from "The Dark Knight" to "Gone With the Wind"). This, of course, all for the purpose of remaking them to their own delight. Cinema helps them pass the time and gain access to a bit of the world that they can't actually see themselves.

The opening sequence is most telling, in which they lovingly act out their favorite moments from Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs". It's at once extremely funny, with their cardboard guns and baggy suits, yet haunting in the same sense. It's the definition of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, in which we're not really sure how the filmmakers found these kids, much less were allowed into their lives. The fact that some of this footage even exists is a testament to the superb direction by Crystal Moselle.

I found it captivating from beginning to end. The mystery of why these boys have been treated this way is handled excellently. Nothing is revealed too quickly, partly because the answers aren't all that simple. It's definitely a slow-build, but completely absorbing. You won't be able to take your eyes off this family. The story of their lives is incredibly gripping, and absolutely worthy of this skillfully-made film.

In Wolfpack, winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Award (2015), the Angulo family is indeed alone and secluded from its environment. Secluded in their Lower Eastside of Manhattan apartment, the 6 children have rarely gone outside because father deems New York too dangerous. That's not the exceptional part of this odd-ball documentary.

The WOW factor is that the kids have grown up relatively unscathed by their isolation. Their saving grace has been their movie addiction, wherein they re-enact scenes from famous films such as Reservoir Dogs and The Dark Knight. Although we don't actually see them filming, we do watch them create ingenious costumes and devise tableaux to emphasize the drama, albeit fictional, found outside their cramped world. As in the recent Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, young people are turning to movies for their societal awareness and outlet for their creative impulses. It could be much worse.

That's all there is, Folks. First-time helmer Crystal Moselle doesn't allow much more depth, for instance on what makes their strong but not particularly articulate father, who gave his children Sanskrit names, do the things he does like imprisoning his kids to avoid their ruin from the streets of New York. Or why mom has been mostly withdrawn yet loving. However as in Grey Gardens, we are privileged observers without restraint, a virtue in documentary film making.

It's just that beyond the cardboard box Batman costumes and impressive toy guns, not much else happens. Perhaps it's the Seinfeld "about nothing" motif but only without Jerry's wit.

I enjoyed this.

I thought the nature of the family and the back story made the audience easily interested.the cuts to video footage of cinema footage and the boys leaving the apartment was an absolute winner.

While we don't get a full back story on the dad and his impact its impact is evident through the boys interaction with him. His dis like of or non acceptance is pretty evident by the way he acts when the boys finally go on a road trip. I liked it, great footage, easy to like the rogue characters and enough left unexplained to make it a good film overall

The six Angulo boys, their sister and their mother live in a low-income New York City apartment with their father, Oscar Angulo, who won't let them go outside. Well, some years they get to leave their apartment and some years they don't. They are home schooled, which in the case of these kids, means watching movies all day, transcribing the scripts and then filming their own versions. These feral, Peruvian John Travolta looking teenagers have probably seen Pulp Fiction fifty times, though they most certainly prefer Reservoir Dogs. Normality, to them, is film. The world they find in film is inspiring, and, coupled with the natural tendency of the captured to escape, they break out, running down the streets of Manhattan, only to be chased down by budding documentary filmmaker, Crystal Moselle. The film begins there. Although the documentary disregards some major questions around the reasons for entrapment and isolation, the boys are fascinating and their impact is lasting. This film inspires the big dreamers; those who are looking to break their shackles.