The Boys Reviews

It's a difficult and painful film to watch, but it is nonetheless an experience in the waiting.

excellent gritty film. recommended for those who like character studies

Easily one of the most striking films of the 90's to come from Australia. It is a showcase of future Australian talent and a remarkable observation on the family psyche with crime and disrespect.

It doesn't take long to work out how the structure of the Sprague family works, with David Wenham's Brett intimidating and manipulating his way to the top of the pack, allowing the men to dominate and the woman to become subservient. And it's through this process that Wenham truly shines, because it says a lot about an actor who can make his audience on edge as much as those around him. As his younger brother Glenn, John Polson is also brilliant and is the most compassionate of the title characters, with youngest brother Stevie (a solid performance from Anthony Hayes) conveying his suppressed rage in almost every scene. As for the women, Lynette Curran is sympathetically convincing as the boys' mother and Toni Collette is superbly powerful as Brett's girlfriend Michelle.

Exceptionally directed by Rowan Woods, this gritty tale in which flashforwards gradually reveal the boys' fate, finishes off with a final line of dialogue that says so much about Brett.

awesome australian film its so tense and nerve wracking cos somebody could snap any minute

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Once in a while a movie comes along which acts to remind, grounding us in a reality which has been pushed aside by more irresponsible, contrived, and conventionalised treatments. The reality explored here is rape and murder. [/size][/font]
[font=Times New Roman][size=3]But not that of the movie world where dogged detectives, outwit master criminals, or gameplaying "brilliant" serial killers. Or that strange world, where rape and murder serve to act as points on a storyline arc, dressed in symbolism and graphical splendour, to serve a film with larger more grandoise themes. Or the dull predicatbly of the action movie "wrongful death", replete with overblown deaths and even more improbable vigilante responses...Instead this film goes back to the basics, reminding us that the normative features within cases of rape/murder are far closer to our everyday experience, than we would care to admit. We prefer the fictionalised "normative" standards devised by authors/artists and filmmakers.[/size][/font]
[font=Times New Roman][size=3]The film based on a stage play, conveys this grounding by not even showing us the crime. Instead it shows the banality of the background factors, which result in the crimes birth. The films characters are disaffected, disillusioned, disassociated, depressed, to the point of reaching a sort of nihilism. A nihilism which masks the seemingly inevitable tendency for these characters, to succumb to casual murderous impulses.[/size][/font]
[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Especially for the central character played by David Wenham, whose nihilistic despair is channelled by his need to control, and his skill to aggressivley cajole and manipulate the weaker around him. His last line (and that of the movie) delivered casually reminds us of the randomness, dumb impulsivity, and sociopathically driven "for the moment thrill" that can characterise the worst of brutal murders.[/size][/font]
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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]See this movie to perhaps see how unsensational, pathetically tragic, and psychologically mundane the minds of rapist/murderers can be. Then go back to the more florid fictionalised, Hollywood reality of this theme...(often made far more palatable.)...as this film will stick in your throat.[/size][/font]
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[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Overall a fine Australian movie. [/size][/font]
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