R-rated Tweens: “Good Boys” raunchy but funny and just as sweet

Good Boys (2019)

89 min.

Release Date: August 16, 2019 (Wide)

Good clean fun, “Good Boys” is not, but for a raunchy tween comedy in the “Superbad” mold, there is a lot more heart underneath than just jokes revolving about sixth graders dropping the F-bomb, looking at porn for kissing tips, sipping beer, and mistaking anal beads for a necklace with a certain stench. That kind of vulgarity is certainly on display, and yet somehow, none of it feels lazy, charmless, or entirely out of this world. What debuting writer-director Gene Stupnitsky and co-writer Lee Eisenberg (who both wrote 2009’s “Year One” and 2011’s “Bad Teacher”) do with a seemingly one-joke premise and an “all involving tweens” R-rating to match is find an endearing tone with their trio of 12-year-old boys who are surprisingly more respectful of women than most adult men. It’s too bad actual sixth graders won’t be able to see “Good Boys” because they will be able to relate to it the most. 

12-year-olds Max (Jacob Tremblay), Thor (Brady Noon), and Lucas (Keith L. Williams) have been best friends since kindergarten—they even call themselves the “Beanbag Boys”—but entering the sixth grade is a big change for all of them. Max crushes on a girl; Thor just wants to showcase his angelic singing voice in the middle school production of “Rock of Ages”; and Lucas has just learned that his parents (Lil Rel Howery, Retta) are getting a divorce. When one of the cool kids invites Max to a “kissing party,” where his crush will be, he plans to bring his pals along. All three of them learning how to kiss gets them into big trouble when they decide to use a drone, which Max’s father (Will Forte) forbids him to use while out of town on business, to spy on his teenage neighbor, Hannah (Molly Gordon), and her boyfriend. Things don’t go as planned when Hannah and her best friend, Lily (Midori Francis), destroy the drone and the boys come into possession of the girls’ childproof-capped vitamin bottle of ecstasy, leading to a series of misadventures.

Like most Seth Rogen-Evan Goldberg comedies (they both produced the film), “Good Boys” manages to find a sweet spot between dirty-minded and heartfelt, having it both ways without canceling each other out. While the “Beanbag Boys” practice kissing on a bodacious "CPR doll" (with her consent, of course), run across a multiple-lane highway, and get mixed up in a drug deal at a frat house, they are still kids. There is actual relatability and insight into growing up, as Max, Thor, and Lucas come to learn that friendships can change and make them question if their friendship will actually last or just coast along because their parents are friends before taking different paths. It might seem like a facile notion in an R-rated comedy about sixth graders misbehaving, but considering it is quite rare to remain tight with your friend since kindergarten, at least the filmmakers acknowledge the truth in it.

Clocking in at a just-right 89 minutes and not wearing out its welcome, “Good Boys” definitely runs with the ribald material, even if some comedic situations are funnier than others, but it’s all held together by the naturally winning chemistry of its three young actors, who all earn big laughs with their own line deliveries. If 2015’s “Room” was his breakout dramatic role, Jacob Tremblay proves his coming timing as the endearing Max; his naiveté on what a sex swing is or the definition of a “nymphomaniac” (“someone who has sex on land and sea”) come off more adorably clueless than immature. He’s just one member of the squad that includes co-stars Brady Noon, as rebel Thor, and major standout Keith L. Williams, as cautious, truth-telling Lucas (whose tendency to scream never gets old with repetition, just funnier). With “Good Boys,” come for the middle-school boys using a dildo as nunchucks and stay for the bittersweet twilight of innocent childhood.

Grade: B -