Good Boys Movie Review

The following is a movie review “Good Boys” by Marc Primo.

Release date: August 16, 2019 (United States)

Directors: Gene Stupnitsky

Language: English

Production Company: Good Universe, Point Grey Pictures, Quantity Entertainment

Producer: Lee Eisenberg, Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, James Weaver

Coming-of-age films are loved by many, but this new film written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, and produced by Seth Rogen, among others, takes things to the next level. Setting itself away (but not too far) from favorites such as Stand By Me, My Girl, and Holes, Good Boys take the signature inappropriate Rogen-style comedy and blends it with the innocence of puberty. Who could ever think that you can pull off a raunchy R-rated comedy starring 12-year olds?

The film ups the ante in terms of shock comedy by taking the innocence of kids to generate adult laughs which, at times, can be a bit uncomfortable. But it all works out in the end as the film maneuvers itself into growing some emotional maturity, in the tradition of other similarly themed films like Superbad or Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Viewers can laugh at how Max (Jacob Tremblay) practices lip-locking with his dad’s CPR dummy (sex doll), or how Thor (Brady Noon) plays with anal beads as nunchucks, or how Lucas (Keith L. Williams) gets thrown off a bike and into a delivery truck with his left arm hanging out longer than the other afterwards.

Undoubtedly, there are plenty of new laughs here and not the kind that you see in other teenage movies. The innocence of the three leads and their chemistry create a new kind of of crazy that’s both entertaining and gross. Each one portrays a different type of 12-year old who represents the typical views of kids that age. The surprising thing here is that it has many positives for adult viewers to enjoy as well, such as the encouragement from a kid’s point of view on how to reach one’s full-potential, or how fitting in is not the most important thing in the world.

There’s an element of empathy that you develop as you watch the three go from one misadventure to another, just because they haven’t really put up any defenses at their young age. For some, it may also trigger acceptance of how puberty really is all about curiosity, with some disgusting discoveries along the way.

These simple positives reverberate throughout the film and are interlaced with a lot of funny moments. Naturally, there’s a limit to how sex is tackled in Good Boys but it doesn’t fall short in being a sex-positive comedy. Most of the film’s emotional aspects seem normal (how Max develops feelings for a crush), and as for cuss words, we’re quite sure kids this age already know what they’re talking about.

Good Boys is not like other friendship movies that audiences have already seen. Writers Eisenberg and Stupnitsky were able to strike a balance between real pubescent emotions and inappropriate dialogue that all adds up to its hilarity. The movie definitely has heart, and the premise of how these kids are anxious to grow into adults is already funny in itself, but all its laugh-out-loud scenes are certainly welcome bonuses.

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