Hellion
Directed by: Kat Candler
Written by: Kat Candler
Starring: Aaron Paul, Juliette Lewis, Josh Wiggins, Deke Garner, Jonny Mars, Dalton Sutton, Camron Owens, Dylan Cole, Walt Roberts, Annalee Jefferies
Drama/Thriller - 94 min
Written by: Kat Candler
Starring: Aaron Paul, Juliette Lewis, Josh Wiggins, Deke Garner, Jonny Mars, Dalton Sutton, Camron Owens, Dylan Cole, Walt Roberts, Annalee Jefferies
Drama/Thriller - 94 min
Hellion’s opening is set at a Friday night high school football game, a religious experience in southeast Texas. Instead of watching the game from the sidelines or on the bleachers under these Friday night lights, director Kat Candler takes the audience out to the parking lot where a group of 13 year olds annihilate a pickup truck with baseball bats and set it on fire. We don’t know why they’re doing it, but when one of them gets caught, Jacob (Josh Wiggins), he has no explanation either; he is just angry.
Jacob will never snitch on the rest of his crew. When I was 13, I also thought I had a ‘crew’, but anyone older than that knows full well crew means posers at that age. Jacob’s crew is more aptly described as juvenile delinquents. They sneak out at night to set construction sites on fire and cause general mayhem. If it was only Jacob’s life he was throwing away, the few adults around to care would most likely continue to look the other way. However, Jacob’s 10 year old little brother, Wes (Deke Garner), idolizes him and it is not too long before Child Protective Services comes calling.
Jacob will never snitch on the rest of his crew. When I was 13, I also thought I had a ‘crew’, but anyone older than that knows full well crew means posers at that age. Jacob’s crew is more aptly described as juvenile delinquents. They sneak out at night to set construction sites on fire and cause general mayhem. If it was only Jacob’s life he was throwing away, the few adults around to care would most likely continue to look the other way. However, Jacob’s 10 year old little brother, Wes (Deke Garner), idolizes him and it is not too long before Child Protective Services comes calling.
The audience sees the same thing the social worker sees, two kids left loose to run amok because their father, Hollis (Aaron Paul, 2014’s Need for Speed), is too consumed by grief and alcohol to provide any sort of safe home environment. Beer cans and trash litter the house and Jacob might as well have direct guardianship of Wes because he is the only one around to provide supervision. Unfortunately, Jacob’s supervision includes encouraging Wes to sneak out and perform illegal acts for crew initiation.
Wes winds up with his Aunt Pam (Juliette Lewis, 2013’s August: Osage County), a reluctant guardian at first who realizes she cannot let Wes fall back in with his absent father and destructive brother. But Hellion is not about Pam and her transformation; it is about grief and the absence of a mother tearing a family apart. We do not know how Hollis’s wife died, but he carries around a load of guilt and pain heavier than any amount of six packs he pops open to drown his sorrows. Driving out to rebuild a hurricane devastated beach house in Galveston is his one connection to the past and now even that is in foreclosure.
Wes winds up with his Aunt Pam (Juliette Lewis, 2013’s August: Osage County), a reluctant guardian at first who realizes she cannot let Wes fall back in with his absent father and destructive brother. But Hellion is not about Pam and her transformation; it is about grief and the absence of a mother tearing a family apart. We do not know how Hollis’s wife died, but he carries around a load of guilt and pain heavier than any amount of six packs he pops open to drown his sorrows. Driving out to rebuild a hurricane devastated beach house in Galveston is his one connection to the past and now even that is in foreclosure.
Hollis is not a bad guy. He does not abuse his kids and at one point in the past, we are led to believe, he was a pretty good dad. Now he is a broken man; a drunken, emotional wreck fixated on rebuilding a condemned house instead rebuilding of his splintering family. The kids on the other hand, deal with emotions they do not understand by acting outwardly aggressive. Jacob hates his father for running away and focuses on winning an upcoming motocross race. In Jacob’s mind, winning the race will solve everyone’s problems. Wes will come home, dad will snap out of it, he won’t feel so angry anymore, and his trouble with the law will melt away. This is a perfectly natural way for a 13 year old to feel.
Using southeast Texas’s ample refineries and oil rigs as her background, Candler evidently knows how to direct children. Foremost, she achieves a powerful performance from Wiggins in his first role. Always appearing in emotional pain, we deduce he may be using Wes’s unconditional love to take revenge on dad, a sort of, “I will turn your sweet, innocent favorite son into me” calculation. All of these suggestions are mere assessments though; Candler’s film would never go so far as to spell something like that out for us. Aaron Paul is convincing as a man on a downward spiral and Lewis plays against type as the one grounded, rational adult looking out for people’s best interests.
Using southeast Texas’s ample refineries and oil rigs as her background, Candler evidently knows how to direct children. Foremost, she achieves a powerful performance from Wiggins in his first role. Always appearing in emotional pain, we deduce he may be using Wes’s unconditional love to take revenge on dad, a sort of, “I will turn your sweet, innocent favorite son into me” calculation. All of these suggestions are mere assessments though; Candler’s film would never go so far as to spell something like that out for us. Aaron Paul is convincing as a man on a downward spiral and Lewis plays against type as the one grounded, rational adult looking out for people’s best interests.
Characters make poor choices all the time in family dramas. Watching them do the wrong thing is what makes them human and aim for redemption. Hellion takes a very long time to arrive at any sort of redemption though. There are frequent statements and intentions to get better, but Hollis is a man who has forgotten how to parent and Jacob holds on to far too much anger all building up to a climax that is more plot-oriented and less believable. Based on her short film of the same name that premiered at Sundance in 2012, Candler stretched it into a feature for this year’s Sundance. At times, it reminded me of 1979’s now campy Over the Edge featuring a roving posse of extremely bored and pissed off teenagers who assault a PTA meeting.
Candler creates a fully developed sense of place with her blue collar, refinery-dominated small town suburbs, but characters this angry and stricken with grief need to give us a bit more. Hellion lacks a specific gravity an emotional family-centric film requires. Hollis and Jacob should be the characters that grab us and ensure we think about them long after the credits; however, they spend so much time staring at nothing or yelling at everything that we lose some interest.
Candler creates a fully developed sense of place with her blue collar, refinery-dominated small town suburbs, but characters this angry and stricken with grief need to give us a bit more. Hellion lacks a specific gravity an emotional family-centric film requires. Hollis and Jacob should be the characters that grab us and ensure we think about them long after the credits; however, they spend so much time staring at nothing or yelling at everything that we lose some interest.
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