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Honey Boy is a film I was drawn to because the older Shia LaBeouf seems to get, the most bizarre films me makes, and often a lot more interesting than what you’d expect from a Transformers movie, as we’ve seen from his recent film, The Peanut Butter Falcon.
In this film, which Shia also wrote – based on personal experiences with his own father – as well as stars in, Lucas Hedges (and in a younger form as A Quiet Place‘s Noah Jupe), plays Otis, an actor who we see, early on, turning his car over whilst drunk, and following a series of scenes where we don’t know what’s part of a film and what’s reality, he ends up in trouble with the law yet again.
Shia plays Lucas’ father, a roadie called James, and who doesn’t treat him particularly right, and the title is what James calls Lucas as a young child.
Overall, as the older Otis deals with his PTSD, and the younger Otis tries to understand his father, this does feel rather like a set of disparate scenes than a coherent movie. However, it’s more interesting and intriguing than not, and you do want to stick with it to see how it ends.
There’s not an awful lot else I can add because this is like watching a road movie in two separate timelines, showing concurrently, and I’m not going to detail how the journey pans out.
My only tip would be to put the subtitles on, since Shia often has his character slur his words in a Southern drawl and you won’t pick up some of what he’s saying.
The film looks great as you’d expect from a modern release, and it has a pleasing accompanying soundtrack from Alex Somers.
The extras are purely very brief featurettes with straight-forward behind-the-scenes content which doesn’t add up to a huge amount, as it mixes clips from the film set against chat from the key cast and crew, the latter of which shows them getting together for a Q&A, which begs the important question: why the hell isn’t that on here?! I love to see a full Q&A on Blu-ray extras. Sometimes you get cut-down versions, and just occasionally, a full one. Here? It feels like a massive missed opportunity.
The segments are: Directing (3:49), The Making Of (4:34), Shia’s Story (4:23) and On The Road (1:58), and there’s also an audio descriptive track if that’s your bag.
The main menu mixes stills of the cast with a short piece of the main theme. There are subtitles in English only, and for the film’s short length, a reasonable number of chapters in 16.
Honey Boy is released tomorrow on Blu-ray (HMV Exclusive) and is already available on Amazon Video.
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
6 10 8 1 |
| OVERALL | 6 |
Cert: 
Running time: 93 minutes
Year: 2019
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Cat.no: LOC1484547BD
Released: April 13th 2020
Chapters: 16
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Widescreen: 2.39:1 (Anamorphic J-D-C Scope)
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Alma Har’el
Producers: Anita Gou, Alma Har’el, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Chris Leggett, Daniela Taplin Lundberg
Screenplay: Shia LaBeouf
Music: Alex Somers
Cast:
James Lort: Shia LaBeouf
Otis (22): Lucas Hedges
Otis (12): Noah Jupe
Percy: Byron Bowers
Dr. Moreno: Laura San Giacomo
Shy Girl: FKA Twigs
Mom: Natasha Lyonne
Sandra: Maika Monroe
Tom: Clifton Collins Jr
Tiny: Mario Ponce
Alec: Martin Starr
Working Girl 1: Haylee Sanchez
Working Girl 2: Leana Chavez
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.