Video Capsule Review

THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS (2002)

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Credits

Rated: R; Video Release Date: Nov 05, 2002; Genre: Drama; With: Kieran Culkin and Emile Hirsch; Distributor: THINKFilm

By Mike Flaherty

With a title like The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, it's no wonder Peter Care's coming-of-age film is plenty preoccupied with issues of transgression, imagination, and sex. It also hints at a gleeful dark humor that's too often unfulfilled by the story of a pair of eighth-grade Catholic-schoolers (Kieran Culkin and Emile Hirsch) who choose rebellion and animated comic-book fantasy as an antidote to the stultifying edicts of their schoolmistress (Jodie Foster). ''Altar Boys'' wants to be a poignant, even melancholy tale, but its attempt at emotional complexity reads as frustrating incoherence.

Posted Nov 15, 2002

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