Film

Son of Rambow (2007)

Director: Garth Jennings

Movie review

From Time Out New York

Like those kids who made a shot-for-shot video version of Raiders of the Lost Ark in their own backyard (yes, it really happened), the main characters of Son of Rambow possess a certain monomania—fearlessly artistic and, in a way, completely unimaginative. The object of their slavish devotion: Sly Stallone’s pumped-up Rambo in First Blood, a VHS copy of which passes from the bullying hands of Lee (Poulter) to those of religiously raised Will (Milner), promoted from his daily beatings from Lee to vine-swinging stunt work. What happens then, in their early-’80s suburban playtime, comes to symbolize a final block against maturity, like Rushmore’s Max Fischer mounting Serpico for the stage—it’s charming, but not exactly new.

Much could be said of Son of Rambow itself, a hermetic Sundance sensation. While writer-director Garth Jennings (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) is smart enough to realize he can’t merely traffic in nostalgia, the subplots he devises are painfully predictable. Domineering or absent authority figures, a stylish French foreign-exchange student (Sitruk) whose fame threatens the partnership, the possibility of (gulp) girls: All rear their heads in ways that only underscore a muddled creative vision that forgets the joys of pure, prepubescent escapism. Actually, maybe those Raiders kids had it right after all.