This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Jude Madigan abandons her husband Robert and her three sons without any explanation. Three years later, she returns to reunite her family. However Robert and his new lover Callie see Jude for the true person she is, and try their best to protect their family. Jude embarks on a campaign against the family, and even seduces her eldest son into committing her acts of violence....In the spate of psycho movies to hit cinemas in the early nineties (Unlawful Entry, Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Basic Instinct, etc), it was inevitable that the original scream queen would sell out, and thankfully, this was one of the last of this sub genre, and the least entertaining.So she comes back with new hair and attitude, and that's about it.But obviously there has to be some auto-eroticism in these movies, so she gets naked in front of her son, has a bath, and he becomes a judge in one scene and ties up Joanne Whalley.Peter Gallagher spends the movie looking concerned and perplexed, sometimes at the same time, and as usual, a couple of seasoned actors turn up in extended cameos to add some kudos to the movie, and to warn the characters of the impending psychopathic ending.Its very flawed, boring, and thank heavens Curtis had True Lies a couple of months later, to cleanse her CV's palate.Its really a dog of a movie, stylish, but still barking from the very upstart.But its the best film ever to feature Curtis falling to her death and not making a sound. Doesn't everyone scream when they fall to their deaths in movies?

Imagine a drama about a woman who abandoned her husband and children. The husband rebuilds his life with a good new woman. Then, years later. the errant wife returns with no warning, expects life to continue as it had done before, and takes it extremely badly when the husband makes it clear that she has no place in his new life.Imagine this scenario presented on screen as a fine, gripping drama. And now forget it, because that that's not what you're getting here.No, what Mother's Boys gives us is the most lurid melodrama imaginable, topped off with a performance of hysterical malevolence from Jamie Lee Curtis.The whole thing is so overblown, particularly the climax (which can, with justification, be called something of a cliffhanger), that hindsight encourages one to view it as, perhaps, something of a comedy - whether deliberate or inadvertent is open to debate.Overall, it's rather fun. But it's not subtle.

This is one of the numerous "…..from Hell" movies which came out in the late eighties and early nineties following the success of "Fatal Attraction" (one-night-stand-from-Hell). Others in the genre include "Pacific Heights" (tenant-from-Hell), "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" (nanny-from-Hell) and "Single White Female" (flatmate-from-Hell). "Mother's Boys" controversially presents us with Jamie Lee Curtis as the mother-from-Hell.Robert Madigan is a single father with three young sons. The reason he is single is that three years ago his wife Judith ("Jude") left him without explanation and disappeared from his life and that of the boys. Robert now has a new girlfriend, Callie, whom he intends to marry as soon as his divorce from Jude can be finalised. Jude, however, has other ideas. She reappears in Robert's life as abruptly as she disappeared from it and wants to resume their life together. When Robert makes it quite clear that he wants nothing more to do with her, Jude reacts with fury, mostly directed against Callie. Although Callie did not come into Robert's life until after Jude had abandoned him, Jude irrationally blames her for breaking up her marriage and comes to see her as the only obstacle standing between herself and her husband. Jude tries hard to win back the affections of her sons as part of a scheme to get revenge on Callie, even posing naked in front of her eldest boy, eleven-year-old Kes. (This tasteless scene, with its implications of paedophile incest, has come in for much well-deserved criticism. I understand, however, that in Bernard Taylor's source novel the incest was more than just implied. It will not be anywhere near the top of my list of required holiday reading this year).The first part of the film is reasonably interesting, and could have been the basis of a much better film. The two female adversaries are well characterised. (Robert, the main male character, is little more than the prize the two women fight over). Callie, played by the kitten-faced Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, is the cute girl-next door type, far more motherly than the boys' biological mother. (She works as the assistant principal at their school). The home she and Robert intend to share when they are married (the film makes it clear they are not cohabiting before marriage) is a spacious, comfortable house in the country, made of solid wood and stone. Jude, by contrast, is played by Curtis as a seductress, all high heels, tight mini-skirts and bleached-blonde hair, glamorous but hard and brassy. By contrast to Callie and Robert's Country Living style, Jude is a metropolitan type, living in an expensively over-decorated city apartment in an Art Deco block. Her talent for alienating people is such that even her own mother takes Robert's side against her.Whalley-Kilmer was at one time tipped for Hollywood stardom, especially after her fine performance in "Scandal", but never quite seemed to make it. Appearing in too many films like this one was probably the main reason. Jamie Lee, however, quickly bounced back from this setback; her next film was the highly successful "True Lies", in which she once again got to show us just what a fine body she had for a woman in her mid thirties. Peter Gallagher, as Robert, makes a rather bland hero, and Vanessa Redgrave, as Jude's mother, looks as through she can't really understand why she signed on for this film in the first place.From about halfway, however, the film starts to deteriorate and declines into lurid melodrama. I won't set out all the plot turns, but can say that they become progressively nastier and more implausible. Anyone familiar with the moralistic vice-punished-and-virtue-rewarded conventions of this particular genre will be able to work out the broad outlines of the ending. If you want to know the full gory details you will have to watch the film itself, but I doubt if you will find them very edifying. Like several unsuccessful "….from Hell" movies (the more recent "Swimfan" is another example) "Mother's Boys" fails because it tries too hard to shock. 4/10

I vaguely remember seeing this in a theatre in 1994 and loving it. I saw it on a huge screen and, visually, it's impressive and I've always liked Jamie Lee Curtis. But seeing it on a TV screen the visuals don't work too well and, despite some good acting, this is a pretty lame horror film.Jude (Curtis) leaves her husband Robert (Peter Gallagher) and their three kids. Three years later she returns thinking she can restart where they left off--but Robert is divorcing her and marrying kind Callie (Joanne Whalley)and one of her sons named Kes (Luke Edwards) hates her. Jude slowly starts to go crazy when she realizes Robert doesn't want her back and tries to manipulate Kes into getting rid of Callie...for good! First off--the plot is old hat and a lot is left unexplained. We never find out why Jude left, where she was (she mentions Paris and New York...but WHAT was she doing there?) and why she becomes a psycho when Robert rejects her. Also there is a VERY sick sequence when she almost tries to get Kes into bed with her! The ending is disturbing (and pretty stupid) and doesn't anyone realize that Kes is going to have severe emotional issues over this? The few saving graces are some truly beautiful visuals and settings (check out Curtis' apartment and Gallaghers' house) and a powerhouse performance by Curtis. She looks incredibly sexy and goes all out in her role. Whalley (a good actress) has nothing to work with and Gallagher doesn't even try. Edwards was just OK in his role but he was only 14 when he did this. Vanessa Redgrave is very good in her too few scenes as Judes' mother.So, aside from visuals and Curtis this movie has little to recommend this. Also, why did Curtis pick this to do when she's made it clear that she hates horror films? A 6.