Review of The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002) by Paul P — 28 Jul 2008

A solid little tale.

I'm a sucker for coming of age tales, no doubt about it and inspite of this one not having a huge amount going on in the plot department, I still dug it a fair deal.

This comes down mostly to the casting. Emile is pretty good as is Jena, Jodie and D'Nofrio, but my favourite was definately Keiran Culkin. Quite why the guy is not a bigger star I don't know. He has a likeable quality about him that really shows through here. Considering that his character is a bit of a douche, that's quite impressive.

The story itself has a number of darker elements which are skirted over but never explored and I wasn't too sure what the actual focus of the film was. The use of animation was pretty novel and it was fun to watch the kids superhero alter ego's act out their story but for me it started to muddle the film.

I really liked what they were trying to do here and although it wasn't always successful I have to admire their passion.