THE BOYS
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Stratosphere Entertainment Director: Rowan Woods Writer: Gordon Graham (play), Stephen Sewell Cast: David Wenham, Toni Collette, Lynette Curran, John Polson, Anthony Hayes, Jeanette Cronin, Anna Lise, Pete Smith
One of the best ways a director has of creating tension is subtly to give the audience the uncomfortable feeling that something is about to happen. In horror movies, the convention calls for creating a series of false moves, of positioning a look at a threatening arm or the sound of a creaking door only to resolve the tension with a harmless gesture. "The Boys," billed by one writer as "a thinking man's horror film," does not display the bait and switch technique of conventional tales of the genre. Instead, Stephen Sewell's script, based on a successful play written by Gordon Graham, is a psychological study of a dysfunctional family with only a modicum of physical violence but one which seeks to give the audience a feeling of tautness. We spend a good deal of time in our seats wondering when the lead male will explode and what effect he will have on his brothers, his mother, and the women in this household in a working-class district of West Sydney, Australia.
The characters speak with heavy Australian accents, giving the marketers a primary target in their own country but making us wonder whether it can travel the long distance to rivet an audience in the U.S. or most other English-speaking countries. The most prominent flaw is that despite some fancy camerawork (especially considering its limited budget and five-week screening time), its origin as a staged play is obvious. The stage is the best place for a largely enclosed story, one which centers on a single household with outside scenes filmed in more or less a contrived way to open the narrative cinematically. Though we see vistas of a prison, a convenience store, and some of Sydney's less fashionable streets, "The Boys" is not suited for the big screen. Director Rowan Woods has, however, assembled a fine group of performers, with Toni Collette (from "Muriel's Wedding") the one most likely to be recognized by an American audience.
Essentially the picture is about Brett Sprague (David Wenham), one of three layabout brothers, who has just emerged from a one-year sentence in prison for assault with a deadly weapon. His sibs had not visited him during that time and now he is fuming with rage and their disregard for him. That's not all. He is certain that his brother ripped off a cache of drugs, is annoyed that his youngest brother Stevie (Anthony Hayes) has moved into his bedroom with his pregnant, waif-like girlfriend Nola (Anna Lisse), and disgusted that his middle brother Glenn (John Polson) has married a woman he dislikes (Jeanette Cronin). Strangely indifferent toward restoring his relationship with his lusty girl friend Michelle (Toni Collette), he moves to re-establish himself as the alpha male of the family. How he manipulates those around him, eventually driving away the women--including Michelle, who in one unfortunate incident is undiplomatic enough to challenge her man's virility--is the principal aim of the film.
Looking at the family from the point of view of the mother, Sandra (Lynette Curran), could give anyone pause before deciding to have children at all. Contemptuous of her husband who had given her virtually nothing during their brief marriage, she is perpetually on edge trying to provide for a bunch of beer-drinking slackers and the women friends who are either living in the house or hanging about it. As the boys drive about the locale, they contemplate crimes while Rowan Woods's hand-held and tripod cameras move forward and backward in time to give the audience a non-narrative perspective on these essentially bad boys.
Those moviegoers who raved about "The Blair Witch Project" might just buy into "The Boys." After all, the emphasis is on the tension, not the actual displays of violence. We wonder what is going to happen next. We might feel great sympathy for a harried mother who must feel from time to time like Medea. Perhaps Woods should be applauded for using techniques so box-office effective with the "Blair" team, but "The Boys" still comes across as a static work unsuited for a medium larger than the stage and one requiring subtitles for all but an Australian audience.
Not Rated. Running Time: 86 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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