Rambo’s Rugrat

It’s safe to say that I am a man full of cynicism. I’ve done many horrible things, and it’s been pretty fun. However, upon viewing the new independent film Son of Rambow, my cynicism was stripped off of me as if I were reborn in holy light and hallelujah! I now love everyone! I even love the ones that I don’t really even LIKE or care to talk to! This feeling is going to fade very quickly though, so enjoy it now. The experience of watching Son of Rambow is like the scene in Ratatouille where the vampirish food critic, Anton Ego, takes a bite of the French stew and blasted back to childhood.

Here’s the setup for the uninitiated: Son of Rambow is about two 12-year-old children from opposite family backgrounds. Will Proudfoot ( Bill Milner ), whose name kind of sounds like a Hobbit’s, is from a family who is part of a religious sect called “The Brethren”. This religious sect, which has a name better suited for a band of mutant-powered terrorists, believes that all secular culture is the work of the devil. They do not watch TV, movies or listen to music, yet they live in the modern world and use electricity. They are kind of like the Amish, but without the balls to go a hundred percent Old School. The other boy, Lee Carter (Will Poulter), lives at a retirement home which his family runs. His parents are divorced, his father is a deadbeat dad, and his mother usually spends most of her time in France with her new boyfriend. His older brother, whom he idolizes, is supposed to take care of him, but treats him like a slave instead. A kid with a background like this is of course going to be the disobedient troublemaker child that nobody at school likes.

This all begins to change when Will sees a bootleg copy of Rambo: First Blood, the first movie he’s ever seen, and the two boys set out to make a sequel to the film for an amateur film competition. There is also a French kid, Didier Revol (Jules Sitruk), who in every scene he is in made me laugh like a little giggling girl because he’s just too cool. On top of all that, the kids are British and the movie is set in the 80’s, which gives it a welcome overdose of cuteness and awesomeness. This is all that I am willing to expose of the plot because the film unfolds so wonderfully and is so charming that the less said the better.

Many people might read this and dismiss this movie as overly cloy and too “Chicken Soup for the Soul” but I assure you that it is not. Director Garth Jennings conveys the story so personally and beautifully that you never once feel a toothache. The story itself feels to me like it was a less girl on girl, PG version of Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures. There are two disparate characters who form a bond over a make believe world. That make believe world is rendered in such a hyper fantasy way that it makes you want to shed off the confines of your reality and crawl into the screen. Both movies are stunning achievements in filmmaking that make you feel the full gamut of emotion, ranging from deep laughter to teary sadness. The main differences between these two films are that there is no underage gayness, and no one receives a brick to the face in Son of Rambow. Everyone is the cast is amazing in performance, from the leads Bill Milner and Will Poulter to Jessica Stevenson (from the hit British nerd show Spaced) who plays the conflicted and complex mother of Will Proudfoot.

America is insane about exposing children to violence. They think that they will all grow up to be murders and rapists if they see a movie like Commando, but those are always the movies young boys actually want to see. Every boy needs to disobey his parents and sneak into an R rated movie at some point. It should be a rite of passage. For me it was Robocop. I snuck in to see it because there was a cyborg in it! I was expecting something like an urban Star Wars, but what I got was an exploding gas station, fourth wall shattering commercials, and a mugger getting capped in the groin. Needless to say, it blew my mind, and just like the boy in this movie, I was hooked as if I had just tried crack.

Son of Rambow proves that there can be films that are enjoyable for both adults and children alike. This movie is a family film through and through, but it doesn’t make you want to slap the children around you for enjoying it because it is actually good. This is a lesson I wish Hollywood would learn. There can be quality in family films, but for every Finding Nemo there are five Sharks Tales. After the screening of the film I attended, director Garth Jennings talked about how autobiographical it was and how it was a personal film. It truly shows. If you were ever a child that played in the back yard or snuck into a movie your parents deemed inappropriate, then you should go watch Son of Rambow as soon as it is released nation wide. This movie deserves to be the next Little Miss Sunshine.

Son of Rambow opens in limited release Friday, May 2nd.