Son Of Rambow

So, you wait years for a slightly surreal film about amateur film-making then
a bunch come along at once. And it its way, this is sort of a British Be Kind
Rewind.

It's the eighties, rural Hertfordshire. There's a kid, who's a bit of a
tearaway, who's got his hands on his brother's video camera, and has decided
he's going to make a film and submit it to Screen Test's Young Filmmaker of the
Year award. He also uses it to sneak into cinemas and pirate films. He ropes
this other unworldly kid whose family are Plymouth Bretheren, into being his
stuntman. Over time, after the pair of them watch First Blood, the project
evolves into a sort of sequel, which is surprising similar in plot to Rambo,
given that neither kid has seen the film, and it hasn't even been made yet. But
hey.

Meanwhile, their school is host to a bunch of French exchange students, and
everyone is in awe of this (allegedly) cool French kid. This kid finds out
about the film, decides it's cool, and wants to be in it, and because he thinks
it's cool, the whole rest of the school does too. Power struggles for control
of the creative process ensue.

It's an amusing take on film-making and Hollywood, with the whole struggle
serving as an allegory for creative control and integrity being compromised
when stars and the studio system get involved.

It's not perfect, and some of the children's acting is pretty stagey, in a
"early Harry Potter movie" kind of way. It is highly amusing, if not laugh out
loud funny, and if you grew up in the eighties, and ever watched a dodgy pirate
copy of First Blood, the film will spark off a lot of happy memories.