Movie review: The Boys Are Back

by John P. Meyer

Artie, the young son of Aussie sportswriter Joe Warr in Scott Hicks' new movie The Boys Are Back, is living life the way kids used to live it when I was growing up in Dallas: dangerously.

For me, that would have been the sixties, and in those days ("the olden days," if you will) there were no child seats in cars (heck, there were hardly any seat belts). We youths would roam the neighborhood unsupervised, exploring the creek (White Rock) with our BB guns, climbing trees tall enough to kill ourselves if we fell out of them, and getting a big thrill out of prowling around construction sites full of rusty nails and stacked lumber. Open ditches and storm drains were favorite hideouts; it's a miracle any of us survived.

Artie (played by likable first-time kid actor Nicholas McAnulty) and his dad Joe (Clive Owen, putting his touchy-feely, vulnerable side on display) are struggling to function as a family unit after the death of Artie's mom (Laura Fraser, as Katy). And since Joe no longer has a moderating female influence around to tell him he's nuts, he allows Artie do stuff like hang onto the hood of the Range Rover as he drives it down the beach; he even gets Artie (sitting in his lap) to take the wheel as he powers through a low water crossing.

Joe's installed a zip line running from about 30 feet up in a tree down to the ground. Parents of neighbor kids gasp and hold their breath when their children are invited to participate in such death-defying shenanigans -- and death-defying is precisely what they are designed to be, as Joe and Artie work through their despair over their shared loss.

There's another way to tell that a woman's touch is sorely lacking (speaking from an admittedly sexist perspective): Joe and Artie's rambling rural domicile is constantly in a state fluctuating between messy and trashed-out. Dishes pile up; laundry gets washed only on a need-to-wear basis, with Artie donning pants directly from the clothesline by climbing up onto a wheelbarrow to reach them. But -- and here's the important part -- they're coping ...

... after a fashion. Joe's stepmom drops in to watch Artie when Joe goes off to work, or alternatively Joe drops Artie off at the vineyard operation run by her and her husband. When that solution doesn't pan out, Joe takes Artie into the office with him. When even this barely-workable solution proves untenable, Joe simply skips work -- and his editor's had about enough of it.

Enter a blast from Joe's past in the form of a teenage son he hasn't seen in several years (George MacKay as Harry, looking remarkably like Rupert Grint/Ron Weasley). Harry arrives from England to spend the summer with his dad and the half-brother he's never met. Harry, who's been raised in a more -- um -- conventional household, is taken aback by the deployment of water balloons and soccer balls in the house; furthermore, his sense of decorum and fragile personal dignity is threatened when the boys laugh at his fizzy soda-can-opening accident. (He is, after all, a teenager.)

Another new influence inserts itself into the Warr bachelor household in the person of neighbor lady Laura (lovely Emma Booth), a single mom Joe meets at Artie's school. If he doesn't succeed in driving her away (through a mixture of overcautious reserve and a taking-for-granted of her offers to babysit), Laura has the potential to repair some of the physical and emotional hurt endured by Warr men, both young and adult.

But they're a tough bunch to love. When Joe goes off to Melbourne to cover a tennis match and springs it on Laura at the last minute, she declines to act as nanny and housekeeper (she having had a more personal domestic role in mind). Harry promises to take care of both Artie and the property while Joe does his sports coverage thing for a couple of days. Which doesn't turn out all that well.

The primary dramatic tension of the film comes into play towards its conclusion, as Joe and Artie go off to England to argue for Harry's permanent residency at their down under homestead. By this time Harry's mom (Joe's ex) is not the only one who needs convincing.

The Boys Are Back certainly deserves much of the acclaim it is accumulating, particularly from the standpoint of its fine performances: Owen displays more range (and more humanity) than ever before, while Booth and MacKay's stars shine brightly as well. And the golden-lit Australian landscapes are a visual treat. But in terms of a cohesive, plot-driven entertainment, The Boys leaves one -- this one, at least -- wanting more.