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Indix flicks
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 20, 2002
Escape to the world of spirit
[Photo: THINKFilm]
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (R) (105 min.) -- Growing up bored and Catholic is an occasional movie topic, rarely expressed with as much edgy flair as Peter Care's coming-of-age drama about teenagers chafing under parochial control in the 1970s. The title sounds timely, but that's an unfortunate coincidence.
The usual conventions are here: a stern nun (played well by co-producer Jodie Foster) cramping their style, a priest (Vincent D'Onofrio) who isn't entirely devout, and assorted pranks. But there's also depth to the rebellion, a desperation shown through comic book adventures springing to life on the screen at just the right moments. Spawn creator Todd McFarlane produced these dark, dazzling segments, making us feel the characters' pain by turning cathartic sketches they have done into expressive flights of fantasy.
The artists call themselves the Atomic Trinity, although it's a quartet, but it sounds cool. The leaders are Francis Doyle (Emile Hirsch) and Tim Sullivan (Kieran Culkin), who are bright yet delinquent enough to turn an act of vandalism into a homework assignment. Sister Assumpta (Foster), a peg-legged grouch who's hell on Moped wheels, is certain they're damned. Father Casey (D'Onofrio) always seems distracted by something else, perhaps an unspoken crisis of faith.
All of them become characters in notebook drawings of mutant superheroes and demonic villains. Sister Assumpta becomes Nunzilla, and a pretty classmate named Margie Flynn (Jena Malone) is viewed as Sorcerella, a mystic damsel in distress. McFarlane turns the boys' pencil sketches into vibrant animation, another movie in itself yet indistinguishable from the real-world story. It's a bold move that works every time.
The performances are equally dead-on. Hirsch in particular is an actor to watch for in the future, and Culkin (Macaulay's brother) proves where the real talent lies in that family. Malone (Stepmom, Donnie Darko) is an attractive, credible catalyst for irrational acts, and Foster mutes her star power, not her skills, for a project she believes in.
Care and screenwriters Jeff Stockwell and Michael Petroni are working from a cult novel by the late author Chris Fuhrman, and the urge to include everything sometimes makes The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys mope a little too long in one place. A late revelation by Margie and a climactic disaster seem injected just to locate an end for the aimless yet effective drama that came before. But this film ranks with American Beauty for its realistic depiction of timeless, youthful angst, standing head and slumped shoulders above Ghost World and other films claiming to speak for teenagers today. B-plus.
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