The Boys Next Door Reviews

This compelling and horrifying study of random violence seldom lives up to its promise, but it still packs a powerful wallop. Maxwell Caulfield and Charlie Sheen are seemingly normal, if somewhat alienated, small-town California teenagers graduating from high school. Depressed by the prospect of having to work for the rest of their lives in the local factory, they drive to Los Angeles for a no-holds-barred weekend. Along the way they beat a gas station attendant into insensibility for having handed them incorrect change. Their violence is cool, but not calculated, and it escalates. The subject matter is grim stuff, but what makes the movie interesting is the lack of any stance. It just presents the facts, which causes it to be all the more spine-chilling. Every act is successively more harrowing, and rather than desensitizing the audience, the film draws in the viewer, who becomes more and more aware of the pain and brutality. Though the film doesn't moralize, it could at least give a hint as to what motivates these boys to do what they do.