CommentsXp Best movie ever!

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Borserie it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

nicoal When you see Rick in the film it's easy to understand that it is impossible to be a 12 years old boy. I think he is around 20 in the film but the director may used this actor because he though that this was the only that he could find and fit for the role. Of course some things in the movie never happened but they were created so the film could be success. I hoped that films like that would be produced even today. As an overview of the film its shows the World War II at the side of U.S. Navy through the eyes of a young boy.

Robert J. Maxwell Okay, Shroder doesn't look twelve, but pretty close. That isn't the problem. The film has a kind of shoddy look to it, mainly due to the photography and wardrobe. Ricky Shroder is a nice guy but not the most convincing of actors. The scenes on the battleship were shot aboard the North Carolina, a relic moored on the Cape Fear River. Some of the performances are quite good, particularly my own as the hobo snoring on the stairs who must be stepped over by Shroder and his friend. I thought my imitation of waking up was superb. As with too many true stories though, this one doesn't follow a tight enough narrative line. It's not linear, not "fictional" enough. There are three main narrative threads -- Calvin's dysfunctional family life, his unlawful enlistment in the Navy, and his abuse in the brig -- and they don't always mesh together as well as they might. In real life, Calvin's service to his country was acknowledged finally, long after the events themselves took place. But, as with all autobiographical material, the story as we see it depends largely on his description of what happened. Was he really raped in the brig? Jailhouse rape was a shocker thirty years ago when situational homosexuality in prison was first acknowledged, but by now we've come to expect scenes like that. A shipmate of mine once spent some time in the Marine Brig. Unless brigs have changed a great deal, inmates didn't get raped in the 1940s. It's not like Sing Sing! They can very easily get beaten up and subject to other verbal and physical abuse, but not raped. Be that as it may, this script could have used a bit of tightening. It rambles around, rather slowly at times, and doesn't exactly enthrall the viewer, except for the performers playing the hobos. One of them is simply sublime.

UPSETTER-2 There are several troubling components of this movie other than the criticism that Shroder was not 12 years old when playing the role. This lad enlisted fraudently as did many other under-aged enlistees in World War 2. Some because of patriotism but in the case of this boy it was because of economic deprivation. He performed his war duties well enough to be awarded citations for bravery. Due to some bureaucratic foul-up he was jailed when returning from leave for desertion. The sad part of this story is that he was raped while in the brig and even the chaplain admitted he was not authorized to write to family members indicating where he was. A fellow prisoner upon release did courageously call the victim's sister and she contacted a local paper to secure his release. But the final absurdity is seen when an officer tells the released victim to not divulge what happened to him. The navy did not want its dirty wash shown to the world.

Sonic-6 Well, Too Young the Hero is a very campy war movie made for TV. My Grandfather was on the same Battleship that the story takes place during the second world war. I used to watch the movie constantly when I was younger, until I realized that it really isn't very good. The acting is not the best I've seen, and the entire story is generally not pulled off well.