Rent Holes (2003)

Not your average kids film - Holes review by CP Customer

The story of 'Holes' revolves around 'Stanley Yelnats' who, for stealing a pair of baseball shoes, is sent to a character building camp called 'Camp Green Lake'. The philosophy of the camp is 'If you take a bad boy, make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy', and under this philosophy the young inmates are forced to dig meaningless holes as a form of rehabilitation. But as the story progresses, Stanley soon believes the camp warden may have an ulterior motive for making the boys dig holes. Overall, 'Holes' isn't your average Disney fodder, even adults who usually cringe at the thought of sitting through a kids film will find this hard to dislike. The story is highly involving and the acting from an all star cast is universally great. Highly recommended!

Dig It, Mostly - Holes review by griggs

I went in expecting a straightforward kids' film and got a buried family curse, a dead outlaw and a decades-old grudge, unearthed one hole at a time. That's a lot to ask of under two hours, but it mostly earns it.

Sigourney Weaver plays the Warden like she's rationing her own menace, and you clock it first in her nail varnish before she's said a word. Jon Voight looks thrilled to be shouting at children in an enormous hat. Shia LaBeouf, in his first film role, carries the whole thing without once becoming annoying — rarer than it sounds, given how hard everyone else is working for your attention.

The trouble is the back half, where every secret surfaces at once and the coincidences start arriving like they've booked appointments. A couple of the camp kids never make it past scenery.

Still, cursed onions, venomous lizards, buried treasure — you'd think it wouldn't hang together. And yet, somehow, cheerfully, it does.

A tale of the US youth gulag - Holes review by CM

An engrossing story, well acted, not too long at just under two hours, with tacit criticism of the US youth 'justice' system which puts Stanley, an innocent kid, into Camp Greenlake, a boys' slave labour camp in all but name, isolated in a merciless desert region of Texas. Sounds grim? The kids aren't sickly-cute, & the plot, humour, music, & acting all lift it out of misery, entertaining the viewer with quirky characters, venomous beasts, & a backstory of love, savage racism, riches, & revenge, haunting the land of the long dried-up lake bed.