Sick Product of a Sick System

Pretty Good

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I watched this movie because I love Ethan Hawke (Predestination, Tape), Asa Butterfield (Hugo Cabret, The Ender's Game), Hailee Steinfeld (The Edge of Seventeen, True Grit). Nevertheless I have hated the characters since the very first lines. They look like the grotesque caricatures of themselves and I never succeded to make a real contact with any of them. The father (Ethan Hawke) is a moron, the kid is a jerk who almost died to sniff some lethal gas during 1988 New Year Eve and his friend is even more obnoxious and he deserves to die. By the way I do hate movies where the main character dies after 15 minutes. If he is a kid I hate the movie more. As an adult I felt ashamed for the character played by Ethan Hawke: how the he** can someone say to a 10 years old kid that he is adopted in the way he does?! Come on! And Johnny the Hare Krisna? I could not bare ANY of the characyers included Les' ex-wife. I mean, do you REALLY need to have one-night-stand sex with that di**head? Are you that 'hungry'? Is he that appealing? I'm not a bigot: I just have appreciated if Les' ex-wife had sent him to fu** himself! Nobody saves and the movie is like a false parade of stereotypical losers. You can survive without this movie, believe me

It's 1980 Vermont. Les (Ethan Hawke) is brutally honest in telling his son Jude that he's adopted. Years later, Jude Keffy-Horn (Asa Butterfield) is an emo teenager living with his adopted mother Harriet (Julianne Nicholson) and his sister. His best friend Teddy (Avan Jogia) is desperate to move to NYC and contact his older half-brother Johnny (Emile Hirsch) living there. Les' girlfriend Diane (Emily Mortimer) has a daughter named Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld). It's a dysfunctional alternative family drama and the grimy East Village gets gentrified.It's often jarring when a lead character dies early on. It's also a little convoluted that Les and Johnny happens to live in the same area. The story would be a lot easier if the three kids go to NYC to find Johnny. Instead, the plot takes strange turns into a weird love triangle. The actors are superb but I'm not sure what to think of their characters. They make me want to stay with them... up to a point. I love these actors so much but the story doesn't live up to them.

The filmmakers here, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (American Splendor, The Extra Man) throw in too many plot machinations and go in too many directions, in my opinion, which dilute the intensity of this indie drama. As a result, the characters here come across as rather cardboard-like and clichéd, and I was unable to really connect emotionally or care much about them.Set in the 1980's in Vermont and New York City, the movie does have an all-star cast which includes Ethan Hawke, Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Emily Mortimer, and Julianne Nicholson. I did think that they each portrayed their individual characters quite well.However, without going into too many plot elements, let me put my "moral police hat" on and say I think the film went over-the-top with its rampant depictions of drug use, which included a drug-dealer father (Hawke) enticing and offering his son (Butterfield) drugs. This is right after his son's best friend OD'd in front of him, and after his son was already getting high on weed, turpentine, mushrooms, and Freon. Thus, between the drug use, the promiscuousness, teen pregnancy, and other plot elements, it was hard to really like any of these characters.Overall, a mixed bag here as the acting was strong but just too many contrived and unlikable characters and plot elements going in too many directions to win me over completely.

Can't help but to love a movie that reminds me of old school New York. Was it really that great? That's how I remember it to be. Than again, I'm not old enough to have struggled on those streets, Squatting in houses and being semi homeless for my art, which the movie glorifies. They did a pretty good job at recreating late 1980s NYC with tight shoots to leave out how alphabet city has change and to keep how it stayed the same, using Super composites of CBGBs, old trains and even phone booths, plus old shots of world trade. It's cool that technology allows us to do that now.The movie's focus on that time period sometimes feels force with one liners explaining how that moment of the late 80s was about to spawn what that neighborhood next to Thompson Square park is now.I thought it was interesting that the actual band, Army of One is showcased in the movie, though not the center focus of the movie, it's about their tour Guitar player Jude and his life, based on a book that I did not read. Ethan Hawke as Jude's dad Les was charming and funny It's a hardcore punk version of Juno in a lot of ways, but all together a coming-of-age story with a lot of layers to it as it Centers around Jude and his friendships with other kids. It was a great ensemble cast. Definitely worth checking out.