User reviews

This movie focuses on a hugely important and relevant subject - bullying. It will leave you feeling angry, at least it affected me that way. The only problem with this movie is that it is very heavy handed in its approach. There is little subtlety or nuance here and I think the message is less powerful because of that. The message of this movie doesn't sneak up on you and impact you. Instead it goes for the jugular right from the beginning. The three protagonists, young teen boys, have bullies all around them. They're everywhere - parents, siblings, other adults and in their peer group. I guess that does make an important point - anyone can be a bully. The thing that is most angering about this movie though are the adults: ineffective parents, teachers and sport coaches who tell the kids just to get over it, take it in their stride or toughen up. In some way they're the real villains in this movie and should be salutary object lesson for all of us.

This movie is definitely worth a watch and, if you watch it with your kids - not the real littlies though - it will provide some good food for discussion.

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.

Sticks and Stones is a coarse, crude, violent, and largely pointless film. Of the first 25 votes cast for it, fifteen were a '10'. I suppose this means the cast and crew enjoyed it. I am thankful that so few other people were subjected to this waste of celluloid.

It is advertised on the video box as a film that will 'touch the family'. Worst case of false advertising I've seen of late. I was appalled by, (and had to comment on) the coarse language to my teenagers, so they will not think that sort of thing is normal or acceptable.

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...

Holy Jesus, where do I start with this abomination of a movie? I saw this on Amazon Prime and checked it out, and I have to say this is one of the worst pieces of hot garbage I have ever seen. They prominently display Kirstie Alley and Gary Busey as being in the stars in this movie and they're in it for a total of 2 scenes. The child actors are god awful! It's not totally their fault though, the script is horrendous. The parts of the movie where you are supposed to feel something about these characters are so pandering, that its embarrassing. I'll bet everyone involved in this movie wishes it would go away. This movie makes a Lifetime movie look like Citizen Kane.

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.

This was one of the most predictable films I have ever seen. It was obvious from the start that everything would turn out as it did. You could tell the lead character was not going to get far with baseball for whatever reason, but he was going to do well at something. Gosselaar was poor and tried to build his role up beyond it's limits and Kirstie Alley should have fired her agent! I would expect better than this.

Stick and Stones is an extremely well acted movie about a group friends, who are being bullied and what lengths they go to stop the bully. I have to say though, Sticks and Stones may seen like a teen drama and even though it is, it still features quite a big of bad language and violence, which may not suit everyone. Max Goldblatt and Mark-Paul Gosselaar are just a couple of the great cast in the movie.

I can't bring myself to give 1 star to a movie that isn't as bad as "Manos" but this film definitely does not merit the current average rating of 6.5. First off, Gary Busey and Kirstie Allie are excellent actors and their professionalism shows. The cinematography is adequate.

If you remember the assorted 70's era religious films, the dialog and most of the other acting is about on par with that. (Some of the more recent religious films are far and away better than this movie.)

Even though the kids cuss in this film, a lot of their dialog seems like how 1940's era script writers wrote for kids. "See you later, champ." Champ?

Generally speaking, I think bullies are grossly mis-represented in films. (The exception being "Napoleon Dynamite" where the bullies are as lame and dorky as everyone else.) In "Sticks&Stones" we have a bully who looks almost a bit too angelic... and that's probably not too bad for casting... but he manages not to be intimidated by a crazed Gary Busey. Busey can intimidate adults. Said bully isn't especially big or threatening himself, but manages to push around 3 kids who could easily brush him off collectively. The 3 are friends who display remarkable solidarity in everything... except to stand up to their most hated person. One-on- one bullying scenes make a bit more sense, except the ones that don't. Like one locker room scene that makes you wonder if there are any teachers at this school. And there's a scene with a student locking an outside door on the school. Um. No. Did the writers never go to school?

Anyways, other reviewers are right. It's a sappy, overly sentimental movie. This might be a good movie to watch with kids... unless you'd rather your kids not use bad language. But generally give this movie a miss and find something else to watch.

This movie is an excellent example of film-making on a low budget. Based on the structure of "3 Little Pigs" plus variation, it is well constructed and fairly well cast (the bully, Hayes, is well acted but not really believable. Joey's mother is not believable at all). The story provides excellent opportunities for exploring parental and teenage values. Those that condemn this little gem of a film have, perhaps, a great deal to learn about films and film-making. This is a very useful film in teaching first year students about a variety of aspects of film.

John Hill. Senior Lecturer, Film Video and Multimedia, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa

Hi!

I love this movie!The story is great,and the actors too.I love Justin Isfeld,he's a great and cute actor!And i love Chauncey Leopardi and Jordan Brower too!They are all fantastic!And i hope they will have a lot of movie!I'm hungarian,so my english is not good,sorry!

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.

What can say other than brilliant. I came across this film accidently and ended up watching it until it finished at around 3am. I was gripped by the film and its portrayal of how children are bullied and the affect it has on them.

This film would probably have to one of the best films I have ever seen. The cast was very talented and the storyline was very realistic and well made. The main character(Justin Isfeld) was very talented and a job well done in his first movie. And Im sure he will go far with his acting career. I could certainly relate to this film with the bullying, not knowing when you bully will turn up and waiting for the next confrontation.

This film is very touching and may make you think twice about getting revenge on a bully. With conclusion with this short review I recommend this film to everyone except children under 15 because of the Adult Themes, Language and little violence. Go rent it on video now! I give it a 9 out a 10 because it deserves a high vote.

I guess this film served some useful purpose, in that it turned out to be one of the only things the entirety of my house actually agreed on. It is awful. Its complete predictability, its hollow sentimentality, its absolute detachment from reality are all marvels to behold.

The 'bully' is one of the least intimidating characters I have ever seen on film. I completely fail to comprehend just how anyone could feel threatened by such a sweet looking young man. I couldn't give a monkeys whether the main character played baseball ever again and I found the lack of any lifelike character laughable and pitying. The most realistic thing about it was the language, and to all those who complained about this, the truth is out... Kids Swear.

I saw this film, excellent acting by Justin Isfeld and good acting by one or two other actors, the story was good upto the climax but the ending was somewhat not well-planned. It was a little bit harsh with Joey. On the whole, an O.K. watchable film.

I thought I would see plenty of hard-hitting drama in this, but was disappointed in many areas. This is more of a baseball tale (ala "The Natural") than a drama about bullying. The three main characters are generally bad actors, making scenes that are supposed to be disturbing rather cheesy. I actually had more sympathy for the abused bully than these nerds. He went through a lot more punishment than they did, especially because of his home turbulent life. Also, it's interesting how the rich kid's older brother bullied him almost as much, yet we're supposed to find him likable? I think not. The ending was VERY predictable and drug out, I couldn't wait to see the end credits pop up. The only reason to watch this sloppy flick is Gary Busey who does his usual tough guy routine. That man is never a bore, no matter how often he is type-cast. So, I gave this flick an extra star because of Mr. Busey. Otherwise, I regret streaming it on Prime Video at all.

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.

I watched this film because it reminded very similarly of a favorite Canadian film of mine, 'The Boy's Club' starring Chris Penna and Devon Sawa. While I didn't care for the baseball elements, I still enjoyed it. It is about three teen boys who have a bully in their life and this bully goes and bully's each one of the boys, they find a gun and they think can solve their problems with it. The film is from 1996 but I still liked it. The acting is good and has a good script. The music is boring though so I wasn't a fan of that. Unfortunately, this movie is not on DVD in the USA or Canada and is only on VHS but if you can find it, I say go and watch it as it is enjoyable.

8/10 stars.