Invited to his first kissing party, 12-year-old Max asks his best friends Lucas and Thor for some much-needed help on how to pucker up. When they hit a dead end, Max decides to use his father's drone to spy on the teenage girls next door. When the boys lose the drone, they skip school and hatch a plan to retrieve it before Max's dad can figure out what happened.
Director: Gene Stupnitsky
Cast: Jacob Tremblay, Brady
Release Date:
Rated R for strong crude sexual content, drug and alcohol material, and language throughout - all involving tweens
Runtime: 1 h 29 min
Review:
Good Boys is one of those comedies that pops up every now and then, much in the same vein of Superbad and this year’s Booksmart. There are similarities to those films but moving the age range down gives its own sense of character and innocence that’s missing from the high school comedies. Gene Stupnitsky directs his film at a brisk pace letting the jokes shoot by at a dizzying pace. The script is sharp even if it’s not groundbreaking, the jokes work nearly from start to finish. The pace of the film never lets anything lingers too long so any jokes that miss don’t hang around long. The cast is likeable and all three boys share solid chemistry across the board. Jacob Tremblay is clearly the most talented of the three but Brady Noon and Keith L. Williams more than carry their own weight. Their delivery of the script is incredibly naturalist and authentic which really helps the film particularly since the film has a hefty amount of heart behind its racy exterior. Good Boys ultimately has a lot going for it but more than anything it’s genuinely funny with a sweet message behind it.
B+
