What else can I say? Things happened and it was never boring. However what did happen was completely unbelievable and it left the audience with the nagging question: "Why?"
I will not echo other reviews except to say I agree that Hill tried a little too hard with the t-shirts and music and I really hate to get into nit picking - but as someone who was in my late teens and early 20s in the mid-90s, this film rang hollow. It's like Jonah Hill didn't even try for accuracy with the female characters, in behavior or how they dressed. Their mother was a total cypher. There was literally nothing memorable about her except that she was obviously a horrible parent with no sense of fashion or self-worth and with serious personal issues that went un-dealt with both in the film and in her fictional personal life. There is no way a 16 year old popular girl would want anything to do with a 10-year old prepubescent boy, or that on the off-chance she was drunk or high and they hooked up, there is no way she would ever openly discuss this with her female peers. Like "Hey guys, I just let a 3rd grader ____ me." Yeah. Right.
Then there is the fact that his mother drags him into the skate shop, screams at the other kids as though she's about to take a much heavier hand in her son's life and what happens next? Well, he spends two or three straight nights in a bum park and partying with his much older friends. Did I mention that the lead actor couldn't pass for 12 years old if he tried? And yet we're supposed to believe that he's just adopted by a group of guys in which only one person is even remotely near his own age, but about two feet taller than him.
The failure of this film to incentivize the audience to suspend disbelief was a common theme and it ultimately ruined it for me. It culminated in the post-drunken-driving accident in which a car full of boys was flipped on its side but nobody got seriously injured or arrested. Jesus.
Less than 10% of what transpired was remotely plausible - and I think Jonah Hill must have been trying to craft some kind of memoir of the crazy life he wished he had. Why? I have no idea, but clearly there was also a desire to exercise some visual directorial chops with the silly, unoriginal montages that included the closing sequence of the movie. It's like he made this movie "Because he could."
And while I can definitely say I was "entertained" for an hour and a half, I wouldn't risk recommending this film to anyone else without serious qualification. If you have a hankering to see a group of kids do extremely stupid things with zero adult supervision, I would suggest "Kids" or even "Requiem for a Dream." This movie seemed like it might be trying for some kind of lesson, but it ended up being a total waste of time.
I will not echo other reviews except to say I agree that Hill tried a little too hard with the t-shirts and music and I really hate to get into nit picking - but as someone who was in my late teens and early 20s in the mid-90s, this film rang hollow. It's like Jonah Hill didn't even try for accuracy with the female characters, in behavior or how they dressed. Their mother was a total cypher. There was literally nothing memorable about her except that she was obviously a horrible parent with no sense of fashion or self-worth and with serious personal issues that went un-dealt with both in the film and in her fictional personal life. There is no way a 16 year old popular girl would want anything to do with a 10-year old prepubescent boy, or that on the off-chance she was drunk or high and they hooked up, there is no way she would ever openly discuss this with her female peers. Like "Hey guys, I just let a 3rd grader ____ me." Yeah. Right.
Then there is the fact that his mother drags him into the skate shop, screams at the other kids as though she's about to take a much heavier hand in her son's life and what happens next? Well, he spends two or three straight nights in a bum park and partying with his much older friends. Did I mention that the lead actor couldn't pass for 12 years old if he tried? And yet we're supposed to believe that he's just adopted by a group of guys in which only one person is even remotely near his own age, but about two feet taller than him.
The failure of this film to incentivize the audience to suspend disbelief was a common theme and it ultimately ruined it for me. It culminated in the post-drunken-driving accident in which a car full of boys was flipped on its side but nobody got seriously injured or arrested. Jesus.
Less than 10% of what transpired was remotely plausible - and I think Jonah Hill must have been trying to craft some kind of memoir of the crazy life he wished he had. Why? I have no idea, but clearly there was also a desire to exercise some visual directorial chops with the silly, unoriginal montages that included the closing sequence of the movie. It's like he made this movie "Because he could."
And while I can definitely say I was "entertained" for an hour and a half, I wouldn't risk recommending this film to anyone else without serious qualification. If you have a hankering to see a group of kids do extremely stupid things with zero adult supervision, I would suggest "Kids" or even "Requiem for a Dream." This movie seemed like it might be trying for some kind of lesson, but it ended up being a total waste of time.