For me, growing up was an adventure. From the highlight moments to those I regret as “boys will be boys” things, I often wonder if the kids of the current generation have it better or worse than I did and even those generations that came before mine. With modern conveniences and technologies, in some ways, these kids have it easier, but I think not having those things made things easier for people my age as well. With writer-director Gene Stupnitsky’s “Good Boys,” this question furthers that discussion.
This film centers around three sixth grad boys in Max (Jacob Tremblay), Lucas (Keith L. Williams), and Thor (Brady Noon), who are lifelong best friends who refer to themselves as “The Bean Bag Boys”. Perhaps not the most popular or coolest kids, they find themselves in the middle of a crazy adventure that centers around the possibility of increasing their status in their school through a “kissing party” with their cooler and more popular classmates.
Shot in Vancouver, this film shows the suburbs very well in order to properly frame the world these kids live in (for instance, one of their destinations is four miles away, and they act like it is in another state). With these young actors being the main focus (with a number of other minor roles), they do very well as a team. Tremblay is a veteran actor for his age, Williams has a few credits, but Noon is working his first real lead role, and they truly looked like they enjoyed playing these characters and being in this film.
At ninety minutes, “Good Boys” is the perfect length for its story, which I absolutely loved! With great and steady comedy along with a realistic story of three boys on their journey to adolescence in todays world, it brings in all of the factors like friendship, family relations, dating, social acceptance, and school life. This really reminded me of a much younger version of “The Breakfast Club” with a bit of a twist. Be aware here of the “R” rating, which it earns with a ton of adult situations, drug references, and sexual humor, but not to the level of “The Happytime Murders”. There might have been a bit more of it than there should have been, but that will not stop me from giving it the coved rating of a full price ticket in the theater.