Good Boys

It’s late summer, the Valley’s fried chicken madness is now at a full boil, and the movies seem to be coming fast and furious, including the ninth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise (which evidently still has a lot to say).

Well, we didn’t see that, but instead bit the bullet and spent our late Tuesday evening watching sixth graders drop F bombs. 

Yes, we saw Good Boys.

As advertised, Good Boys is Superbad light, with the boys being a little younger and the kids’ objective somewhat less sensationally objectionable than in its muse film. The script is pretty high quality and the acting is pretty solid for what it is, though the pacing seemed off to me.  It is pretty funny despite many of the marquee jokes being featured in the trailers, and we did laugh out loud a lot, possibly more than the target audience laughed. Indeed, I think we laughed at a lot of stuff that we weren’t necessarily supposed to laugh at.

A very large portion of the humor involves the disconnect between what we believe sixth graders know and what an over 17 audience knows, particularly pertaining to alcohol, recreational drugs, sex, and adult sex products. Oh, and navigating the suburbs (how exactly should one cross an interstate?). The movie is remarkably restrained in its expression of vulgarity, with the simple appearance of a taboo item enough to elicit laughter in most cases. It’s pretty well done.

This all adds up handsomely for the backers:  the theater was packed, there isn’t a single A-list actor in the movie, and the production budget must have been trivial (though it had considerable promotion campaign). By my calculations, this movie is making the big big money and what they will do with the big big money is probably make more films like this, with the writing quality being swapped out for more explicit verbal and visual content.  I’d put $5 on that.

Speaking of $5, this one is way over that bar with the caveats that you like your humor blue and aren’t offended by kids swearing like actual kids swear when you aren’t around. Clearing the bar is especially easy given Marcus is offering a free popcorn and drink to anyone who flashes this coupon between now and September 2.  We arrived at the theater and our special guest, Bb, was peacocking with his free bounty.

The verdict: it’s not half Superbad.

And that’s pretty good.