Good Boys

Official Australian release date: 19/9/19. Viewed: 21/9/19.

Director: Gene Stupnitsky

Actors: Jacob Tremblay, Brady Noon, Keith L. Williams, Molly Gordon

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

  

‘Good Boys’ is almost a prequel to ‘Superbad’ and ‘Pineapple Express’ (both of which are better), but this time around, there’s three of them & they’re in grade 6, not grade 12. The three “tweens” call themselves the “beanbag boys” – Max (Tremblay), Thor (Noon) and Lucas (Williams) and they do everything together, including the main plot point – trying to get to a spin-the-bottle party.

Needless to say, as a Seth Rogen-produced film, there’s plenty of language, drugs and crude sex references. Plenty goes wrong and they end up on a low-stakes adventure, trying to replace a drone, even though they end up in a cat-and-mouse game with Hannah (Gordon) and Lily (Francis), two college-aged women who they’ve accidentally stolen drugs from.

There’s lots of winks and ‘adults-only’ jokes as the three boys mess up terminology or misinterpret things. Some good physical comedy and a fair few laugh-out-loud moments. Plenty of stupidity too, but in the end, they are genuinely boys trying to be good and not intentionally bad – the underlying story of friendships and how they change resonates.  

Overall: Quick & simple with enough laughs.

Gav's Rating: 3 stars.