The Good Son
THE GOOD SONÂ (18)
D: Joseph Ruben
20th Century Fox (Mary Anne Page & Joseph
Ruben)
USA 🇺🇸 1993
87 mins
Drama/Thriller
W: Ian McEwan
DP: John Lindley
Ed: George Bowers
Mus: Elmer Bernstein
Elijah Wood (Mark Evans), Macauley Culkin (Henry Evans),
Wendy Crewson (Susan Evans), David Morse (Jack Evans)
Delayed its release in the UK due to being associated with
a real-life murder of a child in Liverpool made this film sound much more ominous than what's actually portrayed on-screen.
All in all, it's a rather rudimentary update on The Bad
Seed, starring Macauley Culkin as a seemingly innocent but amoral & rambunctious 10-year-old boy with a desire for murder.
Supposedly, the casting of Macauley in this role was
contractually tied into his reprisal in Home Alone 2, but perhaps the filmmakers would've had a chance of making a better film if they'd breached the contract. Culkin's pathetic performance
is about as menacing as a thimble, upstaged by a young, angelic Elijah Wood in every single scene.
4/10
