Hellion

source: Hellion

As a foreigner traveling in America, I would classify this as . . .exemplary Amercian Cinema. The inclusion of guns and authority issues noted. But this is raw, truthful American cinema; no Hollywood/Disney fluff. This is the purest kind of family tauma about the remnants of a family trying to stay together. Again, the "Amercicanisms" of guns and violence and famly dysfunctionality overlooked, this is just good American drama. Kudos to the cast and writers.

Hellion also known as Retribution is a slight tale from writer and director Kat Candler which has slow, unrushed placing. The film chronicles a family on the edge of destruction in rural Southeast Texas. Jacob Wilson (Josh Wiggins) likes heavy metal and loves motocross biking. He and his mates also get into vandalism and arson. Unfortunately for them, for every wrong move they make the police are immediately on to them. His father Hollis (Aaron Paul) is also broken. He his grieving over the loss of his wife, drinks too much and not spending enough time to look after his two children, their house is squalid. Hollis was a one time local baseball star. His actions also brings him to the attention of the police. The behaviour of both puts the younger son Wes at risk and into the hands of the child protection services who have him fostered out to his aunt Pam (Juliette Lewis.) Things take a turn for the worse when Jacob and his gang go to the aunt's house to visit Wes. The film has naturalistic performances from the child actors which is the big plus for the film. Everything is low key, fatalistic even. The only thing sunny here is the weather. The pacing is uneven as the film is a slow burner. There is too much contrivances, the police seem to be always there when there is trouble which is hard to swallow. There is irony to see Lewis being terrorised at the end of the movie from a gang of kids, after all she did her share of terrorising twenty years ago in films like Natural Born Killers.

"What are you troublemakers up to? Based on Kat Candler's own short film, Hellion is a movie that tries to explore the life of a thirteen year old boy named Jacob (Josh Wiggins) who has recently lost his mother, and to make things worse his father (Aaron Paul) has been emotionally absent while drowning himself in booze. It is no surprise that Jacob has been expressing his rebellion by participating in several acts of vandalism along with his neighborhood friends. When word gets out that his little brother, Wes (Deke Garner), is being dragged into this lifestyle, CPS places him in the care of their Aunt Pam (Juliette Lewis). Hollis loves his children, but he is still hurting for the loss of their mother and when he realizes that he is also losing his children he tries to change, but the focus of the film is on Jacob who thinks he can make things right by winning a local dirt bike competition. This is a coming of age film that tries to portray the family dynamics in an authentic way, but it never fully avoids the genre clichés. Hellion lacks some subtlety, but it benefits from a strong lead performance from Josh Wiggins. Besides directing, Candler wrote the screenplay for this film in which she has no intention of shining a light on the innocence of this kid, but rather portraying him as a victim of his circumstance due to the neglect of his father. Somehow the film failed to connect with me and I wouldn't recommend it over other brilliant coming of age films. Clocking at just under 100 minutes the pacing of the film does seem to be a problem as well and many scenes could've been cut out of the movie. We are repeatedly batted over the head with Jacob's rebellious behavior and it got a bit tiresome after a while. The soundtrack consists of mostly heavy metal tracks which both Jacob and his father like to indulge in while at home. The story takes place in a small southern Texas town which is gorgeously captured by Brett Pawlak's shaky cameras. Unfortunately everything that Hellion tries to say has been said before in other better films. What Hellion has going for it are the strong performances. Josh Wiggins is outstanding as the lead character in the film. It is hard to get a good performance from young teen actors at times, but Wiggins is a natural and he delivers an authentic portrayal of a troubled teen who is struggling to understand why the world has turned its back on him. Deke Garner plays his younger brother in a subtle manner. He is mostly a sponge that tries to absorb what the people around him say to him. Garner had worked with Candler in the short which this film is based on. Imagine if Aaron Paul's character from Breaking Bad would've been rehabilitated after finding a lovely wife and having two children with her. Later he loses his wife and falls in despair all over again, but instead of drowning his sorrows in drugs he does so with booze. Paul is playing this character full of anger once again who doesn't seem to know how to raise his children on his own. It was refreshing to see Juliette Lewis playing a normal role and trying to be a good role model for her nephews. This is Josh Wiggins movie and he elevates the material in such a way that he makes this a watchable experience despite lacking originality and subtlety.

Hellion tells a story of the thirteen-year old Jacob in coping the loss of his mother. He and his motocross-crazed friends get caught up in some quite serious things such as arson and vandalism. Things get worse when the court decides to put his kid brother Wes on foster care, while his often boozed-out father Hollis is also not handling the grief well. One day, Jacob gets drastic by secretly going to Pam's house, Wes' foster care place, with the help of his friends, trying to take Wes. But thing go south among Jacob's friends and he shoots one of them who are fighting. The basic story is just ordinary for me, though it's a hard example in family loss. But the later development of the story is surely interesting because it displays quite a rough emotion play on the focus of actions and consequences. The ending proves to be a nicely written piece of the story and done very well. The bad thing is that the pace is too slow. Well I guess that's what happens when you kind of force a short movie into an hour-and-a-half movie, with less material to dramatize about. The mood is quite stable on the low tone. The movie is quite a sleepy one especially for viewers who seek a fun watch. The cast of up and coming teens and kids actors on the focus of this heavy weight story is a nice decision. In my opinion, the acting presented by those kids is also well beyond expectation. They do live out the characterization well, translating the main story theme into the behavior on screen. I also see the great direction done in guiding the kids to the desired performance level and suitable expressions. Having Aaron Paul and Juliette Lewis surely contribute well to reeling audiences' curiosity. The end verdict from me is a 7 out of 10 score and a so-so recommendation to go and see this movie. Be warned though, this is not a movie for you who seek a fun watch. But those who appreciate high drama content and deep stories will have a good time watching this movie.

I was confused that they made this a full length movie and thought really this could better as a TV show or mini-series. Giving more of a background to the challenges the family has come across and an understanding of the community and the fathers relationships in the community. The back luck situation was typical of many TV dramas. Husband loses Wife and gets depressed resulting in a diet of beer and fast food and emotional distancing for the family. Nothing really fresh. However I admire that the story does not go Disney and the characters and development of events are quite believable. So if you want a look into the life of hard knocks and love Mid-West accents this is the movie for you :-)

HELLION (2014) ** 1/2 Aaron Paul, Juliette Lewis, Josh Wiggins, Deke Garner, Dalton Sutton, Camron Owens, Dylan Cole, Jonny Mars. Well-acted domestic drama about a family fumbling through their grief over the sudden loss of the mother with her husband (Paul, low-key yet very affective) drinking his pains away and their sons (Wiggins, a natural and equally affective turn, who reminds me of a young Kevin Bacon, and Garner), the eldest the titular end result. Lewis is equally low-key as the concerned aunt. While filmmaker Kat Candler elicits fine work from her actors the script leaves much to be desired and more fleshed out. While there are so many outlets for the characters to explore each road feels abandoned.

First of all let me start by saying that I saw this movie at a theater downtown, so I was not at SXSW or Sundance, so I may have not had the same experience as others. But let me tell you this, this is fantastic. I loved every second of this film. it was exhilarating, emotional , and unpredictable. I swear, this movie will make you go through the most emotional ride you've been on all year. And the performance's are riveting. Aaron Paul, fresh off of breaking bad fame is absolutely excellent, his performance had so much emotion that, at points, made me tear up. And newcomer Josh Wiggins did a phenomenal job because he had a performance that felt so real and was at times heartbreaking to watch. And Juliette Lewis was great in her role as well. But the one thing that I like the most about this was the directing by Kat Candler, as she gave this movie a good sense of grit to it, and that's why I give this movie a 10/10. so that's my review of hellion!! now if you want to check out my review later today go to YouTube and look up ghostface3000100

*****Hint hint****** A little spoiler but it won't wreck the movie*** I thought this movie was awesome, it's a kinda movie that you want to watch with your dad and brother because it shows how close you need to be with them. I was really blown away by this movie, the casting was pretty good too, Overall a movie you will want to watch again and share with your friends. The story seemed so real, like I watched it online so I could have looked up if it was a true story but I just watched it and by the end I was sure it was. The one thing that drew me away was the poster, I know the boy did motocross but the poster could have been better, I mean that really doesn't matter because the movie was awesome. I would and will watch this later for sure!

Retribution is a very difficult film to get into as it seems devoid of both point and purpose for almost its entire running time. It eventually boils down to a father losing custody of his youngest son due to his unruly behaviour and due to the behaviour of his oldest son Jacob. The big problem with this film is basically down to how it's actually been set up; this very thin story is about the failings of the father as a parent so therefore you would assume that most of the focus would be on the father himself, but the writers offer very little insight into Hollis as a character - it might have helped if the writers would have fleshed Hollis' character out more in order to make us understand his behaviour. It's mentioned that his wife has died and that he used to be a baseball star etc, but again these are just little threads that are mentioned, but I felt could have been expanded on more. It's very hard for me to get involved in a film when writers don't develop characters as I generally find that I won't care for a film if I'm given no reason to. The film also jumps around all over the place and just rambles on and on until eventually we get to the 'point' of the film about 10-15 minutes from the end. Aside from the father, the rest of the characters are rather one-note and shallow and as I've already mentioned this was a very hard film for me to care about. The film has a sub-plot involving his eldest son competing in a motor-cross competition which didn't really go anywhere and seemed kind of pointless. The only positive thing I can say about this film is that Aaron Paul was excellent and did everything he could with the material that he was given to work with. However that is the only good thing about this truly terrible film.