The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

"The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" is one of the best books I've read in awhile, so I was pretty stoked to see how it translated to film. The good news is, this coming-of-age tale (revolving around the themes of first love and adolescent mischief) remains faithful to its source, while expanding (successfully, I think) upon what was written in the book. This worked very well in Terry Zwigoff's "Ghost World," but there are times in "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" where the tone threatens to go from comedy-drama, to flat-out drama, to flat-out comedy. It always manages to regain its balance, though. The story revolves around Francis Doyle (Emile Hirsch) and Tim Sullivan (Kieran Culkin, who's very good), altar boys with a comic-book fixation and a resentment of authority (represented here by Jodie Foster's peg-legged Mother Superior); also on hand is Francis' love interest, Margie (Jena Malone), who reveals herself to be a complicated, tragic figure.

As far as revisiting adolescence is concerned, "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" is accurate, funny, and even sad. However, it suffers from an over-emphasis on close-ups during key dramatic scenes, and the lead performance of Emile Hirsch is surprisingly weak (when he emotes, it looks exaggerated and fake). Overall, though, this is pretty good. 3.5 stars out of 5.

The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys is kind of like a cross between The Virgin Suicides and Stand By Me. Set in the 70's (featuring many cool 70's haircuts) in small town Georgia, the story focuses on Francis, a 14-year-old dreamer and troublemaker. He and his pals, Tim, Wade, and Joey cope with life under the oppressive rule of one-legged nun Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster) at the Puritan Christian high school they're unfortunate enough to attend.

One of their methods of escape is the 'The Atomic Trinity' comic book. Each of them have their own character with superpowers (such as The Muscle, Captain Asskicker and Skeleton Boy), battling against the tyrannical regime of Nunzilla/Pegleg (a gross caricature of Sister Assumpta). These fantasy stories make up the terrific animated sequences of the film. The cool thing is that they are not so totally removed from the reality of Francis, Tim, Wade and Joey.

The boys soon find their way into a lot of trouble though. After stealing the school's nun statue mascot the quartet plan to steal a cougar from the zoo and put in Sister Assumpta's office. A mad plan yes, but their determination and invention behind it is very clever.

Some scenes of the film are very emotional, so if you have soft spot you'll find it tough to get through the scene where Tim finds a dying dog by the side of the road or Francis reading a poem at the funeral.

Francis' relationship with Margie (the very cute Jenna Malone) also takes many curious and unique turns. The scene with the ghost watching them sleep was pleasingly weird.

Taken from the one and only book (posthumously) by Chris Fuhrman (a book I must get as soon as I see), The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys is attractively shot, wonderfully acted and definitely worth getting.

The DVD is in 1.85:1 widescreen (strangely non-anamorphic, though the region 2 version is) with Dolby 5.1 sound and a mild bunch of extras.

THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS (2002) *** Kieran Culkin, Emile Hirsch, Jena Malone, Jodie Foster, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jake Richards, Tyler Long. Funny and poignant coming of age story centering on two Catholic school adolescents (Culkin and Hirsch both superb) whose penchant for juvenile acts of defiance is only underscored by their innate desire to fit in and be loved while pitted against their arch nemesis, their teacher Sister Assumpta (a dourly cheeky Foster, who also produced the project), a one-legged harridan from Hell. Based on the novel by Chris Fuhrman and written by Jeff Stockwell and Michael Petroni, the film's strengths in storytelling are in its dynamic duo of troublemaking loners and are punched up with a wise peppering of Todd McFarlane's vivid animation depicting the boys' creative flairs as a Greek chorus to the plotline at hand. (Dir: Peter Care)

THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS, based on the only novel of the late author Chris Fuhrman, gives a great portrayal of the ups and downs of adolescence. Despite veering wildly away from the novel, the film does a great job of transposing moments of boredom-inspired adolescent lunacy with aching transcendence (the scene in which Francis, the protagonist, akwardly talks to his dream girl Margie for the first time made MY heart flutter, and I haven't been 14 for a while!)Still, I wished that the scriptwriters had stuck closer to the book in some respects, especially detailing Francis' home life, which would have given greater insight into WHY he uses his drawing as an escape(and he has a heavy-duty reason to escape). For the guy who wondered in his review about Tim and Francis' home lives, let's just say that Francis' parents are WAY more disfunctional in the book than in the movie. Even with the parents' virtual absence from the movie, there are still great moments that were more or less transferred from book to screen: the scene in Margie's bedroom(although a bit more explicit in the book);Tim and Francis' finding the dying dog by the highway and Tim's subsequent soliloquy; the fateful journey into the wildlife preserve. Painful, beautiful, and true. See this one.

`The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys' is NOT, as you might expect, a film about predatory priests, but rather a slice-of-life tale about four malcontent Catholic schoolboys who spend most of their free time devising preposterously elaborate and life-threatening practical jokes to play on the faculty members of their school.

As a coming-of-age drama, the film is fairly conventional in its plotting - i.e. young boys, in their rebellion against the uncomprehending adult world, experiment with drugs, first love, sex and general rule breaking - although there is a tricky and touchy incest-related subplot that is handled with a certain amount of delicacy and sensitivity. The highlight of the movie is the outstanding performances delivered by youngsters Emile Hirsch, Kieran Culkin and Jena Malone, whom you might remember as the young Jodie Foster in `Contact.' In fact, Foster herself appears in this film (in addition to co-producing it) as the uptight nun, Sister Assumpta. Unfortunately, her character is probably the least well developed one in the film, a fact that seems more obvious than it otherwise might if an actress of Foster's caliber were not playing the part.

The film also displays a nice feeling for its early-70's setting and does a good job capturing the way young people actually speak and communicate (the cast members have their nonverbal expressions and gestures down beautifully as well). Working from the novel by Chris Fuhrman, screenwriters Jeff Stockwell and Michael Petroni, along with director Peter Care, interrupt the live action at regular intervals to provide animated sequences that are ostensibly derived from the anarchic superhero comic book on which the gifted boys are collaborating. We know that these sequences are intended to provide a kind of fantasy alternate universe for these troubled kids who seem to find no meaning in the restricted world of religion and rules in which they find themselves, but the fact is that these sections of the film, not very creative in themselves, merely serve to thrust us out of the story at crucial moments.

`The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys' is an odd and somewhat misleading title for this film, since most of the `danger' these boys face is, primarily, a product of their own stupidity and not of their religious upbringing. Indeed, the religious figures in the film are mainly cranky and/or ineffectual, not really dangerous. `The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys' is an uneven film, but the superb performances by its youthful cast members make it ultimately worth seeing.