It’s kind of hard to think on where to start with this movie since not only was it hilarious but it was filled with the type of cringe that makes a person laugh despite the same circumstances being horrifying in real life. Maybe that’s the draw, the fact that we know it’s fiction and therefore it’s perfectly okay and very little is taboo. That would forgive a lot in Good Boys since the movie is out and out hilarious as well as raunchy with a capital R, a rating it most definitely earns. Seriously if you’re not into the insensitive type of comedy that strips innocence away and makes use of a level playing field where everyone is at risk, then this movie might not be for you. But if you’re ready for the slapstick humor that can shock, amuse, and leave you gasping for air from laughing so hard then you might as well take a seat and enjoy yourself. Manhola Dargis of The New York Times offered a few backhanded compliments to the movie and even made a few decent points as to what it’s all about, but once again if you can’t stand the comedy when it’s dialed up to eleven then you might not be able to sit through this comedy.
Superbad is the model used to describe this movie by just about everyone so far so I’ll refrain from it to be somewhat original, but A.A. Dowd from AV Club at least recognizes that the kids behaving poorly in this movie actually were kids. There’s no need to demonize the kids or the people they interact with since quite honestly it’s a movie about people. Granted there are a few situations that are pretty dicey and not at all legal, but at the same time they’re funny because of it. What this movie is trying to do more or less is show the transition that kids tend to go through at certain point in their lives, in a very risque and blunt manner that a lot of people might have felt is beyond the norm for many kids. That would be true obviously but in a lot of ways it might also be below the norm as well considering that some kids do some pretty horrible things and this day out with the Beanbag Boys might have been pretty tame by comparison. After all, what a lot of people are kind of forgetting it would seem is that this is ONE DAY in the lives of these kids, a day that’s being driven by their need to be seen as a part of the popular crowd and not a bunch of spastic little kids.
Dave McNary of Variety breaks the movie down pretty well and even goes so far as to give his own explanation of it, though of course it pays to be judicious about a movie that half the audience will like and half might frown upon. The main issue that this movie might have, apart from over-sensitive viewers, would be that it will continue to draw comparisons to Superbad, when in truth the stories are quite different because of age and circumstances. Where Superbad might have drawn only little bit of ire largely because the character were teenagers, some people were likely already freaking out when this movie hit theaters since the idea of kids swearing, drinking, and being around anything sexual has been a massive issue in recent years and for even longer than that. As someone that’s voiced such concerns in the past it’s hard not to agree with those ideas, but it’s also important to remember what was already said above, it’s a MOVIE. Like it or not, there is a boundary between real life and fiction that takes away the need to care too much about the characters and to worry about their circumstances, especially when it comes to comedy. People come to the theater to laugh at a comedy, it’s not meant to be judged by the acts or words that the actors experience.
It’s true that this movie features sex toys that the boys use in very unconventional ways, such as using a dildo to bar the door of a convenience store, or a fetish mask as a Halloween mask, and it does deal with underage kids asking to buy drugs and an underage kid stealing and then sipping a beer. It deals with the things we didn’t understand at that age and yet pretended to since we wanted to be cool, we wanted to fit in, and we wanted to be considered the lords of our domain so to speak. In other words Good Boys is a coming of age story that just happened to be made into a raunchy, over the top comedy that is bound to make you roar with laughter if you have the type of humor required.
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