Sticks & Stones

This is a terrible piece of film making. I was shocked at all the bad language. I was hoping to watch a enjoyable family film with a touching story but was outraged by the content. There was no touching story just a bunch of foul-mouthed kids who mess about with a gun. Shame on you Kirstie Alley and Gary Busey.

While I may have to agree that this is not a family film I have to point out that as a teenager myself I founnd this film moving, funny and extremely poignant. While I haven't been bullied myself you get the feeling of being drawn into the film and you share with the lead roles helplessness. This is one of the few modern films that reely on the script to keep you instead of fancy plot lines and computer sequences. 10/10.

On one hand, you have a viewer that may not understand the purpose of this film and has no desire or forethought to begin to do so. On the other, one that is perhaps more realistic in rating this film based on their version of the intent of the director.

Like The Boys Club, I look at this film as targeting 12-15 year old, boys particularly, faced with dealing with guns and violence in general. If a child is younger than that, it may be more destructive than productive, depending on the parent supervising. Older kids will think it is lame only because they want may want the target to be other, younger kids to avoid attention to themselves.

What I see is this. The film teaches the parents and the aforementioned aged youth, the value of peaceful resolution of issues, the seriousness of the mis-use of guns and the tremendous peer pressures that fall on kids that are not adults but are not really kids anymore either. Those that choose not to take the movie seriously or consider it crude, may not be realistic in their own assessment of the film's target age group, the lessons to be learned, the presumed goal of being realistic or may be in denial that this likely has happened in real life over and over in larger cities like LA, Chicago and New York.

I am a mentor of an at-risk youth in Portland, serve on the Board of Directors of a Police Activities League, have a son that is not old enough to watch this yet and am learning teen development by hands on experience. I am not an expert I wouldn't think, but I do see true value in this film and the lessons to learn from it for the audience that it was clearly made to cater to.

I welcome a debate or confirmation to discuss this if anyone chooses to do so. I promise to be open minded and as non-bias as I can.

I think this movie was quite good and it was not 'false advertising', it was worthwhile and deals with some realistic issues. I guess some teenagers are over-protected and don't know much about the real world but they can't be sheltered for life, matey. Believe it or not, this happens somewhere.

I caught the film on TV by accident and couldn't pull myself away. I ended up watching it to the end which finished around 3am. I was suprized by the amount of gritty violence and language it included but at the same time became engrossed in 3 young boy's lives.

I thought the film was made perfectly to reflect on the life of school children who are bullied and ignored by the rest of the world. Kids go home crying and parents never have a 'real' idea of what happened. A punch, kick or even something like name-calling is what they will presume but "Sticks & Stones" shows it all. The violence, embarrassment, fear and the friendship of what happens in children's lives.

It was both a feel good and think about film. At times I found myself wanting to hold a gun to Hayes' head but later on wanted to comfort him.

An excellent film without a doubt, one that makes you think about life...