Skip to content
Dom Robinson reviews 
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 08553 DVD
- Running time: 83 minutes
- Year: 1993
- Pressing: 2002
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 15 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Pro Logic)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: 12 languages available
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £15.99
- Extras: Trailer
Director:
- Joseph Ruben
Producer:
- Mary Anne Page and Joseph Ruben
Screenplay:
- Ian McEwan
Music:
- Elmer Bernstein
Cast:
- Henry: Macaulay Culkin
Mark: Elijah Wood
Susan: Wendy Crewson
Jack: David Morse
Wallace: Daniel Hugh Kelly
Alice: Jacqueline Brookes
Connie: Quinn Culkin
Janice: Ashley Crow
The Good Son courted controversy at the time of its impending release due to similarities between what happened in the film and the death of Jamie Bulger, a young child who was killed by two elder boys. I have never seen the film until now, but I don’t think films or anything should be delayed like that because they’ll come out eventually and it’s not as if the film-makers planned the brutal murder(!)
When Mark’s (Elijah Wood) mother dies, he has to spend the Christmas vacation with friends of the family and he meets their son Henry (Macaulay Culkin, just a few short years after Home Alone). At first the latter seems a normal kid – boisterous, playful, but deep down lurks an evil little shit who at first shows off by shooting a dog dead and shortly afterwards causes a horrendous pile-up on a local road by throwing a dummy, affectionately known as “Mr. Highway”, off a bridge and into the oncoming traffic…
Mark’s fears increase when an incident on an ice rink almost results in Henry’s younger sister Connie (Quinn Culkin, adding to the acting family) drowning under the ice, yet every adult around thinks Mark’s exaggerating and it all starts to rebound back on him.
What does have a genuinely interesting premise, though, gets rather tiresome as you realise the 83-minute film, despite being short, seems very dragged out and could easily have been told in around 50 minutes.
Henry – his bite is worse than his bark. The film is presented in the original 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio and has some artifacts that only really show up in dark scenes, mainly indoors. Also, the transfer is a little skewed in that everyone’s head (which is the most prevalent thing in a case like this) looks a bit on the ‘fat’ side when using the correct widescreen mode on your TV. This can be compensated with an alternative mode like “Just” (for Panasonic TVs) or “Super Zoom” (for Philips TVs), while other models may have an alternative. Quite why this happens though is unforgiveable.
The soundtrack is nice and pleasing but it’s not a film that relies on special FX and is only in Dolby Pro Logic so don’t expect anything major.
The only extra is a 2-minute trailer in 4:3 fullscreen.
There are 15 chapters to the film which isn’t enough and the subtitles come in 12 flavours: English for the hard of hearing as well as Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish and Turkish. The menus are all static and silent. Back-catalogue titles deserve better treatment than this.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.