It is a performances centric movie

Excellent, smart action film.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Hellion also known as Retribution is a slight tale from writer and director Kat Candler which has slow, unrushed placing.The film chronicles a family on the edge of destruction in rural Southeast Texas. Jacob Wilson (Josh Wiggins) likes heavy metal and loves motocross biking. He and his mates also get into vandalism and arson. Unfortunately for them, for every wrong move they make the police are immediately on to them.His father Hollis (Aaron Paul) is also broken. He his grieving over the loss of his wife, drinks too much and not spending enough time to look after his two children, their house is squalid. Hollis was a one time local baseball star. His actions also brings him to the attention of the police. The behaviour of both puts the younger son Wes at risk and into the hands of the child protection services who have him fostered out to his aunt Pam (Juliette Lewis.)Things take a turn for the worse when Jacob and his gang go to the aunt's house to visit Wes.The film has naturalistic performances from the child actors which is the big plus for the film. Everything is low key, fatalistic even. The only thing sunny here is the weather. The pacing is uneven as the film is a slow burner. There is too much contrivances, the police seem to be always there when there is trouble which is hard to swallow.There is irony to see Lewis being terrorised at the end of the movie from a gang of kids, after all she did her share of terrorising twenty years ago in films like Natural Born Killers.

"What are you troublemakers up to?Based on Kat Candler's own short film, Hellion is a movie that tries to explore the life of a thirteen year old boy named Jacob (Josh Wiggins) who has recently lost his mother, and to make things worse his father (Aaron Paul) has been emotionally absent while drowning himself in booze. It is no surprise that Jacob has been expressing his rebellion by participating in several acts of vandalism along with his neighborhood friends. When word gets out that his little brother, Wes (Deke Garner), is being dragged into this lifestyle, CPS places him in the care of their Aunt Pam (Juliette Lewis). Hollis loves his children, but he is still hurting for the loss of their mother and when he realizes that he is also losing his children he tries to change, but the focus of the film is on Jacob who thinks he can make things right by winning a local dirt bike competition. This is a coming of age film that tries to portray the family dynamics in an authentic way, but it never fully avoids the genre clichés. Hellion lacks some subtlety, but it benefits from a strong lead performance from Josh Wiggins. Besides directing, Candler wrote the screenplay for this film in which she has no intention of shining a light on the innocence of this kid, but rather portraying him as a victim of his circumstance due to the neglect of his father. Somehow the film failed to connect with me and I wouldn't recommend it over other brilliant coming of age films. Clocking at just under 100 minutes the pacing of the film does seem to be a problem as well and many scenes could've been cut out of the movie. We are repeatedly batted over the head with Jacob's rebellious behavior and it got a bit tiresome after a while. The soundtrack consists of mostly heavy metal tracks which both Jacob and his father like to indulge in while at home. The story takes place in a small southern Texas town which is gorgeously captured by Brett Pawlak's shaky cameras. Unfortunately everything that Hellion tries to say has been said before in other better films.What Hellion has going for it are the strong performances. Josh Wiggins is outstanding as the lead character in the film. It is hard to get a good performance from young teen actors at times, but Wiggins is a natural and he delivers an authentic portrayal of a troubled teen who is struggling to understand why the world has turned its back on him. Deke Garner plays his younger brother in a subtle manner. He is mostly a sponge that tries to absorb what the people around him say to him. Garner had worked with Candler in the short which this film is based on. Imagine if Aaron Paul's character from Breaking Bad would've been rehabilitated after finding a lovely wife and having two children with her. Later he loses his wife and falls in despair all over again, but instead of drowning his sorrows in drugs he does so with booze. Paul is playing this character full of anger once again who doesn't seem to know how to raise his children on his own. It was refreshing to see Juliette Lewis playing a normal role and trying to be a good role model for her nephews. This is Josh Wiggins movie and he elevates the material in such a way that he makes this a watchable experience despite lacking originality and subtlety.

A heartfelt story delivered in a subtle and effective way reminiscent of David Gordon Green's, JOE, and Jeff Nichols', MUD (I wasn't surprised to see Jeff's name in the credits). Nicely understated, beautifully shot and with a great breakout performance from Josh Wiggins. Aaron Paul avoids what could otherwise be a clichéd father-gone-wrong with a beautifully underplayed performance. The incomparable Juliette Lewis brings a vulnerability to one of the least fragile characters she's ever played and overall HELLION breathes easily throughout its ebbs and flows.Kat Candler did a great job in the director's chair and Aaron Paul should be commended for his support of emerging filmmakers and independent film.

I decided a few months in advance that I wanted to attend Sundance 2014 with some friends; something I'd been meaning to do for years. Imagine my surprise when I looked over the festival program and saw 'Hellion', directed by Kat Candler -- a faculty member at The University of Texas, my alma mater. I'd known a bit about the development of the film through the school, and that it had been a short film previously, and so I committed to seeing it at the fest. Even more surprising when I got in line for tickets, the film was sold out!Around Sundance, there was lots of buzz about 'Hellion' and its breakout performances (Josh Wiggins as a child actor, and Aaron Paul in a starring independent feature film role). Impressed by the hype from a film whose director we sort of 'knew', my friends and I all decided to leave other screenings early to waitlist the film. When the waitlist opened, the waitlist tickets were gone within SECONDS. One of my group was lucky enough to snag the first spot in the waitlist by chance, and so he gratefully surrendered his ticket to me as the rest of the group huddled outside in the Utah cold. The film was THAT big of a deal.I made my way into the theater in Park City and sat front row, a few seats down from Candler and the producers, eager to see if the film lived up to the hype. The doors to the theater closed, the lights dimmed, and the film rolled.The film was incredible. Not only did it live up to the hype, it far surpassed it. I was floored by the deft direction and approach to adolescent volatility. I knew through UT that Candler was talented, but was genuinely shocked by the writing, direction, creative use of production values and (perhaps most importantly) the story.'Hellion' was a monumental film that everyone in my group at Sundance was itching to see -- and one that even more were eager to praise. I think films about fathers, sons, and brotherhood really strike a chord in modern parlance, and this fired on all cylinders in that regard. Although I admittedly wasn't the hugest fan of the original short film (heavy metal has never been my favorite of music, so I'm a little biased) I think that the expansion to the longer-form feature was really what the concept deserved; and Candler capitalizes spectacularly on this medium.The result is an immensely entertaining, meaningful piece that really connected these common threads of truth in troubled family relationships. As a former University of Texas student, I was very proud to have seen the film at Sundance, and hope the future holds even greater successes for Candler and her producers.'Hellion' is everything you hope for from an independent film and more. It's thoroughly entertaining, evenly-paced, and manages to develop a strong message by the time its final frame hits the screen. Seeing 'Hellion' was a meaningful experience, and one I will not soon forget.10/10