Customer Reviews

Boys Club [VHS]

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a movie that you can watch once and it won't bore you. It starts well and heightens the expectations, but the sequence of events in between and the ending is average. The fact that this movie does not actually provide a motive for the killing is a major reason why I've taken off 2 of the 5 stars. The 3 boys do a good job of their roles and look far more skilled for their age. All in all, a movie that can be watched once. 3 stars for this one.

Three 14 year olds unknowingly let a wounded cop killer (pretending to be a cop running from corrupt cops) into their club house. He is admired by Erik but the other two aren't so sure. Well he turns on them, holds Erik hostage, and sends Kyle (who has enough problems already) and Brad out to get him a getaway car. I liked this film because it shows what true friendship is and it is well acted by all the actors. I recommend this film to anyone who wants to see a good, suspenseful movie.

Three boys are forced to find out how deep their friendship is when they are put to the test by a man who intrudes their private shack. Starring Chris Penn and Devon Sawa, this is a good film for anyone who enjoys a thriller!

Acting was good,the plot is kind of lacking. I would give a 5 star rating if the ending is a bit different such as the authority got involved whereas the kids took it into their own hands.

This movie was one of my favorites. It shows teens as they really are and it takes place in Canada which is cool. It's a movie you can relate to.

I loved this movie very much.....I thought it was a great script and wonderful storyline......The actors played their characters well.....Devon Sawa was great..he is a great actor.....he can really work the camera...I reccommend everyone to watching this movie..it is great!!!!!!!!!

I have loved Devon Sawa ever since I first saw him in the NERF commercials and followed by his first movie Little Giants. This movie challenges Devon acting skills, and he passes with flying colors. Devon has always played a "boy next door" figure and it's exciting to see him as a "bad role model." It's an excellent movie and I highly recommend it.

My remarks toward this picture
Coming-of-age sagas are frequently burdened with threat, especially because the genre has been so overworked and even pulverized into cliché. Yet young filmmaker, John Fawcett, pulls off a coup with this hip and arresting drama that's full of spit and attitude, and is relentlessly in your face, whether you like it or not. The Genie-nominated, first-time Toronto director, working from Genie-nominated writer, Peter Wellington's edgy, intellectual script, re-invigorates the genre with panache.

He does so by balancing climactic suspenseful elements with authentic human insights. He does it with a first-rate cast, led by Chris Penn as a psychotic cop killer badly affected by a grim childhood who, when he had reached his breaking point, I guess you could say in a sense, had me on the edge of my seat till I was fully assured that he was conquered-such riveting performance was that compelling. A performance so compelling, it earned him a nomination as Best Actor at the 1996 Genie Awards. Here, Penn really delivers his finest since co-starring in Abel Ferrara's elegiac gangster film, The Funeral. (Even the title itself screams of great mourning for that which is irrecoverably past.)

The three youths played by our rising young stars are at loose ends during a teachers' strike that has closed down their small Ontario town's high school. The three friends, who dispute because their social and intellectual instincts tug in three dramatically different directions, find themselves in a quandary one afternoon as they head toward their secluded shack deep into the wilderness where the pressures of growing up do not have to be faced; however, that severely wounded and yet armed stranger in whom they discover hiding out inside may just be their ticket to real adventure. Overriding common sense, they decide to help the stranger, who we find out is named Luke, rather than report the incident to the police.

"If you want something, you just take it, and then it's yours," Luke says, and they do, and they love it. They get themselves into trouble and the thought of getting themselves in insubordinate acts excites them. (spoiler) What is so clever with regards to this piece is that, even when, through the audiences' eyes, we want to wail out the words: Wake up, stupid! when one of our teen heroes is about to make a mistake in judgment, the Fawcett-Wellington team make those mistakes understandable. We sympathize. We comprehend. We're involved.

The ambivalence and complexity of the struggle are why The Boys Club has accurately been called a cross between Stand By Me and River's Edge, two landmark films that explored teen anguish with a piercing intelligence, never pandering to the youths or condescending them.

Fawcett walks the same wobbly tightrope, even if The Boys Club remains as a modest film, at least, in scale, that will not gain the notoriety of either Stand By Me or River's Edge.

On the other hand, Penn is a towering force, a raging bull-of-a-catalyst in our teen protagonists' lives. Dominic Zomprogna-being the one to play the part of Kyle-perfectly essays the confused youth torn between intellect and impulse; Stuart Stone, who plays the part of Brad, is a terrific counterbalance as the practical one, while the charismatic Devon Sawa-a dead ringer for Leonardo DiCaprio-is pure feral instinct. (According to Sawa, his character in the film, whose name is Eric, is so unlike himself that it really puts his acting skills to the test. The Boys Club has generally been his most challenging film yet, and yet he passes with flying colors.) Nicholas Campbell provides a compellingly sad-sophisticated portrayal of Kyle's father.

Their personalities mix, the deeming of both their feud and friendship bond and the palpable danger of the narrative ups the emotional stakes. (spoiler)
The Boys Club is not at all just kids' play. It is an inexorable and deeply powerful film that tests friendships and human insight, and yet it doesn't ever overdraw upon a single factor that would diminish it from being the masterpiece that is, because that's precisely what it is despite of the fact that it was shot as a Canadian film on a skin-and-bones budget, will not be released in most countries-which is a shame-and was shown at only a few theaters in Canada. (Mind you, it, however, is available on VHS and DVD in, aside from Canada, Australia and the U.S. as well.)

The Boys Club, although the affect it has upon me isn't quite as great as it once was-for I have now watched it so many times, that it has reached an extent where the amount can no longer be counted anymore-it, nonetheless, is a film that will forever be special to me. Not only because the tension that was generated by these kids in danger influenced me to become a writer, an interest that has drastically altered me as a person, for I now I'm capable of expressing my feelings in a way I never thought possible; but, in addition, because, after having stepped inside a video store one glorious day, it instantaneously drew me to purchase a copy of it on DVD despite of the fact that I merely had a VCR-a machine that was left setting alone no longer, for I the following day ended up purchasing the player itself, a highly sophisticated machine in technology that has forever altered both my experience and outlook upon movie-viewing.

This movie was excellent and skillfully done. I don't only love it because one of the main stars, Dominic Zamprogna, is SOO hot, but just because it's a great movie. It is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that you will have to watch from beginning to end.

I absolutely loved this movie. It truly proves that true friends stick together. I would have loved to have a shack/clubhouse like the one in this movie. Devon truly works the camera. When he is beat up by Chris, you really feel for him. You almost want to reach out and help him. I DEFINATELY recommend this movie. But only to teenagers and above. Great script, story line, and actors!