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SON OF RAMBOW
Directed by Garth Jennings. Starring Will Poulter, Bill Milner, Jules Sitruk. Opens Fri, May 23.
3 1/2 stars

Son of Rambow takes a hilariously offbeat and touching look back at the 1980s through the eyes of a couple of British kids. When sixth-grade bad boy Lee Carter (Will Poulter) catches a screening of First Blood at the local cinema, the onscreen carnage wakes something inside him. He emerges from the movie a changed man: Lee Carter wants to make movies. 

With a Handicam pilfered from his bully older brother, Lee takes it upon himself to continue the adventures of the tortured Vietnam vet John Rambo. He finds an unlikely ally in the resident weird kid, Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), drafting him into service as his movie’s lead actor/stuntman. Will has grown up in a religious household so restrictive they don’t even allow him to see movies, but under Lee’s tutelage, his overactive imagination blossoms. Before long, he’s guiding the movie into some crazy, un-Rambo like territory (including a scene with a hang-gliding plastic golden retriever). It’s not long before the whole school wants in on the action too, including the too-cool-for-English French exchange student Didier (played to nouveau-cool perfection by Jules Sitruk). 

As with most showbiz stories, success and popularity bring complications. As more and more of the creative process is taken away from them, Lee and Will find they aren’t having as much fun as when they started. Personality conflicts bring delays. Creative differences emerge and threaten to destroy not only the movie, but their friendship as well.

A hit at Sundance two years ago, Son of Rambow is one of those poignant, slightly off-centre, working-class comedies the English do so well. It’s touching while staying resolutely kooky, heartwarming without ever straying into sap. Son of Rambow is an enjoyable (and oddly relatable) look at a couple of lonely, creative kids trying to make the best with what they have.