Less-is-more approach helps Hero
Abraham Lincoln once said, "No man is poor who has a Godly mother." Truer words were never spoken where the Smallbone family is concerned. The matriarch of the family, Helen, held her family together after her husband's business failed and their house was foreclosed on, then moved to the United States to find the job promised her husband was given to someone else. Did I mention she was tending to six children as their lives fell apart? Or that she was pregnant with her seventh while this was happening?
Joel Smallbone is in the enviable position of making a tribute to his mother for the world to see and has done so with this directorial debut, Unsung Hero. One part of the Christian pop duo For King and Country, he has fashioned a portrait of the woman who guided him and his siblings to a life of faith and service. Also having co-written the script, this is a solid, if safe, movie that will play to fans of faith-based movies, hitting all the inspirational points we've come to expect.
Smallbone steps into the role of his father, David, an Australian music promoter whose business failed after he oversaw a disastrous Amy Grant tour. That the 1991 economy tanked at that time proved the killing blow. Desperate, he reaches out to former clients, seemingly securing a position with a Nashville recording artist. However, after uprooting the entire family to move halfway around the world, upon arrival he's told the job has been given to someone else.
Living in an empty house, with no jobs available in the music industry, the Smallbones – adults and kids – begin doing yardwork and cleaning houses to make ends meet, barely scraping by, sometimes going without. And through it all, Helen (Daisy Betts) maintains a positive attitude, instills confidence in her children and adheres to her faith, even during the darkest of times.
Smallbone does a good job in not laying the sentiment on too thickly. Many of the events – both dire and triumphant – are presented with little manipulation, heart-tugging music used sparingly, the performances grounded and with little affectation. This helps considerably in the delivery of the film's wholesome message, the director allowing the viewer to discover their own response and feelings rather than being overtly prodded towards them.
The Smallbones' path to success is genuinely one for the books, the highs the family reaches unpredictable and exceptional. Folding real video footage of the clan into the movie lends a sense of authenticity but it's the focus on acts of kindness from friends and family rather than the suggestion of Divine intervention that's the key. In the end, it's Hero's less-is-more approach that effectively drives its message home.
Boy loses way amidst orgy of violence
Like a favored thoroughbred that fades in the stretch, Moritz Mohr's Boy Kills World begins strongly with a seemingly new twist on an old format, only to devolve into a repetitive, senseless, orgy of violence. A strong turn from Bill Skarsgard, effective over-the-top performances from three screen veterans and an intriguing premise end up being forgotten amidst a virtual non-stop, unimaginative exercise in gratuitous gore.
There's no time or place given as to where the action occurs, but it is in the near future in a dystopian society. I have a feeling it's nestled in between The Hunger Games' Panem and the ravaged Chicago of Divergent. Seems a despot, Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen) and her siblings have taken over the local metropolis. Each year The Culling is held, a gathering up of enemies of the state who are then executed on live television. They're portrayed as "those who threaten our way of life," their deaths seen as a necessary step to keep the status quo.
Of course, this sort of practice is going to leave many widows and orphans, one of them being Boy (Skarsgard). Having seen his mother gunned down in front of him, he's intent on toppling the Van Der Koy dynasty. Taken in by a shaman (Yayan Ruhian), he's been well-trained and has a lethal skill set that would make Liam Neeson jealous. After witnessing the latest culling, Boy is triggered and decides to stage a one-man invasion of the Van Der Koy compound, intent on wiping them all out.
The funniest conceit is that Boy is mute and deaf, yet we are privy to his inner monologue, a running commentary on the action that is, at times, clever and quite funny. While lines like "I am an instrument shaped for a single purpose," may seem flat on the page, Skarsgard's overly earnest delivery of it and others like it inject much needed humor to the proceedings.
Equally fun are the performances from Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman and Sharlto Copely as Melanie, Gideon and Glen respectively, the other Van Der Koys, each struggling to do their part to keep the familial dynasty in power. This trio provides the best moments of the film, playing their roles to the hilt. The fight scenes, of which there are about 10 too many, are imaginatively choregraphed, bolstered by Mohr's constantly moving camera. There's an energy to these sequences, as well as a sense of dark humor at play during them, that makes them initially entertaining.
However, like everything that's repeated ad nauseum, the action soon becomes tedious. Even worse, the humor in the cartoonish violence eventually gives way to a sense of brutality that's off-putting. Unfortunately, Mohr takes a good idea and runs it into the ground. What could have been an effective action film parody devolves into a sophomoric exercise that bludgeons the viewer, leaving us numb and disinterested. Ultimately, this ends up being one bad Boy.
