Review of Little Boy (2015) by Russell T — 04 Mar 2016

I was very skeptical about this movie and I was afraid it was going to go a bit far with its faith-based story (like the godawful God's Not Dead), but I was pleasantly surprised to see it doesn't walk that path! Little Boy follows the story of a family whose father is sent to war and his son, Pepper (AKA Little Boy), will stop at nothing to make him come home sooner.

It being a faith-based movie, Pepper finds solitude in believing in someone greater than himself to bring his father back from the war, of course. What I found interesting is that Pepper is never told who he's believing in.

I don't believe the kid even knew what he was believing in, just that he was told it could bring his father back, so he believed in anything he was told, which is how anyone his age would act and I thought that was a nice touch to the story.

I also appreciate the movie doesn't criticize anyone who doesn't believe, unlike God's Not Dead. For example, Hashimoto is a Japanese man living in the town of O'Hare and he was having a very hard time with the war going on and noone wanting to hang out with him or even talk to him.

He is also an atheist as he told one character in the movie. Now, if this were God's Not Dead, Hashimoto would surely be a villain of the movie, and I am so glad this isn't God's Not Dead.

Hashimoto is actually a very likeable character who helps Pepper with this "ancient list" of things he has to do to bring his father back. The story does have some issues, though. It's way to cheesy and even cringe-worthy at times.

I had the same problem with the movie If I Stay, which was just too sad to actually be sad. In If I Stay, the main character went through so much stuff and lost so many people that it was just ridiculous.

Little Boy suffers from a similar problem. The movie has, in the first 20 minutes, a lot of sad scenes and it's just too much to handle for the beginning of the movie as you just met the characters and there's already bad stuff happening to them.

I can't care for a character who I know nothing about and have only seen on-screen for about 6 minutes, which is why I found the movie to be sad, but couldn't cry at one scene. The ending is also disappointing as they're building up to the death of the father and when he does die, he doesn't die.

They do a fake death, and he's alive in the end. Sure, it's a happy ending, but it's just so cheesy. The acting is good. The kid actor, Jakob Salvati, can overact and be cringe-worthy at times, but everyone was overall good.

The direction is great, there are some really good shots in the movie, but I think they used a bit too much bloom in the movie as it can get quite blurry to look at. All in all, a surprisingly good family drama which is well-meaning and it could be inspirational to some, but it's too cheesy and cliched for its own sake.

Also, the ending shot. It's unnecessary, but I appreciate the effort and it's a nice touch to the overall movie.