Sixth grade was a big year for me.
It was the last year I spent in a private school that was so bougie that my biology teacher, who was German, smoked in class and lectured a bunch of naïve 11-to-12-year-olds about how Adam and Eve were nothing more than a Jewish folktale.
That also was the year my father decided to have “the talk” with me while we pushed a cart around the produce section of a local Harris Teeter and I heard words like ‘vagina’ for the very first time.
And it was the year, shortly after “the talk,” that I had my very first Proudest Moment In Life, which began with me telling a classmate that he masturbated dogs and concluded the next day when the same student sucker-punched me at my locker, shouting, “My dad says I do not!”
Watching Good Boys, which is possibly the sweetest raunchfest ever filmed, you can’t help but be hit with a recurring wave of nostalgia for such simpler, more innocent moments of youth.
Good Boys is about three best friends, Max (Jacob Tremblay), Lucas (Keith L. Williams) and Thor (Brady Noon), who call themselves the Bean Bag Boys, and the one day that their worldview, and lives, are forever changed.
At its core, Good Boys is about nothing more than replacing a remote-controlled drone and avoiding being grounded so Max can attend his first “kissing party” where he hopes to finally smooch Brixlee, the girl he believes he will one day marry.
Because it’s a tween comedy, that means the boys must somehow figure out how to make the money needed to replace the drone, navigate the six-lane thoroughfare that separates them from reaching the local shopping mall where the electronics store that sells the drone is located and make it back to Max’s house with the new drone before his father returns from a business trip.
Because it’s a hard-R tween comedy, it also means the boys must outwit two older high school girls, Hannah and Lily, whose MDMA they unknowingly pilfered and threw away; outgun the local college drug dealer to score more drugs to repay the high school girls; and learn the many varied uses for a litany of sex toys, such as giant double-ended jelly dongs and anal beads, that have nothing to do with actual intercourse.
To its credit, Good Boys is consistently funny and packed with a rat-a-tat-tat barrage of one-liners, innuendos and prepubescent put-downs.
“We’ll tell everyone you’re a misogynist,” Hannah (Molly Gordon) tells Max after she catches him using his dad’s drone to spy on her and Lily (Midori Francis) in hopes of seeing them kiss, so he too can learn how to kiss.
“I’ve never massaged anybody!” Max shouts in his defense.
But, given that Good Boys was co-produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the guys behind Sausage Party, Neighbors, Superbad and even TV’s Preacher and The Boys, you realize pretty early on that even though this is a film about sixth graders behaving badly, there’s nothing terribly, truly shocking taking place.
What Good Boys could have used is more of Rogen and Goldberg’s particular brand of whip-smart, envelope-pushing debauchery, and fewer scenes where Max, Lucas and Thor fumble around with bondage gear or search the Internet for kissing porn.
The reality is that Good Boys is at its best when it sticks to the quieter moments that define that specific point in time that all of us have gone through.
Moments like Lucas hearing from his parents that they’re about to divorce, where they try to sell him on the upside that now he’ll have two Taco Nights per week at their respective houses instead of just one.
Or Thor struggling with insecurity because he’s been bullied about wanting to sing in the school musical.
Or all three boys discovering that childhood friendships aren’t always meant to last, no matter how much they believe they’ll be Bean Bag Boys for life.
In a summer that’s been sorely lacking in standout funny movies, it’s almost refreshing to sit and watch the equivalent of a live-action Chickenhawk cartoon come to life. Or, as Max explains, “we have to get the drugs so we can get the drone so we can go to the party!”
To that end, Good Boys lives up to its name.
It’s a good comedy, not a great one. And that’s OK.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at Blood Violence and Babes.com, on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes or on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
Stay up-to-date on Tampa Bay culture, arts, music, film, food and more — subscribe to our newsletters.
This article appears in Aug 15-22, 2019.