Very Cool!!!

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

good film but with many flaws

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

As a documentary this is a weird and strange insight into an isolated life fuelled by movies and music..... or it's not. A tale of a family of brothers, 1 sister, and mum and dad who live on Manhattan Island, New York City, and isolate themselves from society with only the father allowed keys to the front door and any real access to the outside world. The brothers become obsessed with movies, write out entire scripts and re-enact them with very impressive props and homemade costumes. They then discover, when one turns fifteen, that maybe they don't have to be so confined and can venture out alone ( be it dressed in a homemade horror mask ) Whilst I have very little doubt that this is a genuine family I do have doubts that this is a genuine tale. For having lived a life of such social isolation they seem the nicest and most balanced young men, although to be fair society isn't exactly balanced in itself so that's not a great example of why this seems such an unlikely truth. As mentioned before there is a lot that doesn't add up, why live in Manhattan? Why allow the kids such access to media and film when you believe society is corrupt? Why did a SWAT team show up during the documentary when the kids had been playing with prop fire arms for years? And so many more questions...... I have to say that I had doubts within the first 20 minutes as to the authenticity of this documentary. If it is authentic then it's an extraordinary tale, if it's not then I don't see the point. Sadly I think the latter. I found it hard to rate because of this so I gave it a 7 as it's either a real good old story or a hard to discern hoax.

I thought this documentary was a mess. Sketches of information were given to us and left up to the viewer to fill in the blanks. First and foremost, what is going on with the parents? We know that the father is abusive toward the mother and has kept her virtually locked away from her family and society. Okay, we get that. But then it shows a scene of her out jogging. Hello! Would you care to elaborate on why this woman who has been abused for 20 years is out exercising? Why did she decide to call her mother after all these years? If she is going outdoors now, too then does she plan on leaving him? Does she realize how sick her husband is? Well, we don't know what she thinks because it appears the film maker never asked her.The father, who is the central character here, is shown as a lazy drunk who either is paranoid or uses his distrust of society as a reason to sit at home all day and drink. Why doesn't the filmmaker get him to talk so we can figure out if he's a leach or mentally ill? Does he abuse his kids, too? If he kept his kids inside all those years, he doesn't seem too upset that they're going out. And wait.....is that him and his wife walking hand and hand through a park together? If you find the 20/20 story somewhere then I recommend watching that instead of this. You'll come away with twice the understanding in half the time.

'THE WOLFPACK': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)Critically acclaimed documentary flick; about seven siblings, six brothers and a sister, that were locked away for fourteen years, by their father, in an apartment in the Lower East side of New York City. Everything they knew, about the world, was learned by watching movies. The film was directed by first-time feature filmmaker Crystal Moselle; who discovered the Angulo brothers, walking down First Avenue (in Manhattan), re-enacting their favorite films. I really enjoyed the movie, and think it's one of the best documentaries in years!The film tells the story of six brothers (Mukunda, Narayana, Govinda, Bhagavan, Krisna and Jagadesh), and their sister (Visnu), who were locked up in an apartment, in New York City, for 14 years. Their mother homeschooled them, and their father (who had the only key to the place) forbid them from leaving. One day the eldest (Mukunda) escaped; and then courageously explored the city, for the first time, in a Michael Myers mask. He was soon arrested, and sent to a mental hospital; the Angulo siblings' world changed forever, after that day.The film is beautifully shot, and scored; and it always seems a bit haunting (and disturbing), but ultimately inspiring. I could really relate to the six boys; having grown-up obsessed with movies, and overprotected by my mother. I was also really shy, and socially naive (and still am today); but I also really relate to their relentless passion for film. The scenes of the brothers reenacting all of their favorite movies, are priceless. There's some moral question, of whether the filmmakers exploited these children (in order to tell a great story); and I'm not sure what I think about that. It's still a great movie though!Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://youtu.be/f4ptmnmXTWE

The Angulo family live in an apartment in New York's Lower East Side. Including the mother and father, there are nine of them. The boys spend considerable time re-enacting the contents of their favourite movies using home-made props and make-up. They are obsessed with movies in actual fact. But this can possibly be explained on account of the fact that these boys have more or less remained indoors their whole lives. Their domineering father being the primary reason this decision has been enforced, although the mother seems quite happy with the idea also. The boys seem okay with this situation, which from the outside seems incredibly unnatural and absurd. The boys existence makes me think of the life of a house cat; a type of feline that has been brought up and conditioned to stay indoors, such that it knows no different way of living, despite the fact that such an existence goes completely against the natural way of this type of animal. When its human beings submitting to this sort of thing though, it starts to seem more than a little bit strange.The Wolfpack certainly has an unusual story to tell. For this reason I was somewhat disappointed with the film. While there is considerable interview material, for some reason there isn't all that much insight and I came away still being none the wiser about how this situation arose and was maintained for so many years. It's about people cut off from society through choice, yet you have to wonder how the social services could have allowed it. Children will go along with things because they know no different, unaware of what damage may be being done. I can't help think that these boys have been deprived of a considerable amount that they may come to fully realise in later life and their mother and father consequently seem unfit parents. The father in particular did not come out of this very well, his position was he was protesting against the system by choosing to not work and instead laze around at home drinking alcohol and watching TV. I wasn't very convinced by this stance. The boys seem surprisingly balanced considering their restrictive upbringing but I never even got a sense of what they felt when they finally emerged outside. So while the source material here is certainly of some interest, I can't say I thought too much of the execution and I left somewhat underwhelmed.