Film Reviews

Son of Rambow

• Rating:
• Director: Garth Jennings
• Starring: Bill Milner
• Details: UK / France / 96mins (12A).

Written and directed by Garth Jennings (Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy), Son Of Rambow is an amiable coming-of-age comedy that will appeal to men of a certain age (if you were twelve circa 1983, you're in for a treat). Will (Milner) is the oldest child in a fatherless Plymouth Brethren family, a sect that doesn't mix with outsiders, listen to music or watch TV. That is until Will meets school tearaway Carter (Poulter), a loose cannon who likes to spend his time shooting short movies and making pirate videos. One day, Carter shows Will his first film - Rambo: First Blood - and he's blown away. Using Sly's action movie as a jump-off point, the two boys team up to shoot their own version with the help of local kids and the existential French foreign exchange student. Son Of Rambow is a love letter from Garth Jennings (today) to Garth Jennings (aged 12) and what he has done and done brilliantly is made a comedy that will appeal to both adults and kids (think the Enchantment style of comedy). He even finds time to throw in the odd animation sequence and Jackass stunt. Jennings also grants us one of the most loveable kid characters in recent movie history - we've all gone to school with (and probably got a slap from) a Carter. However, after a while there's an element of waiting for Jennings to stop goofing around and it knock it up a notch, to kick on, but it never does. The story is loose, like it's almost a plot, and Jennings would have done better to streamline his ideas into one story instead of branching out and trying to encompass some needless subplots (the French student gets too much screen time).

Review by Gavin Burke