Rent The Good Boy (2025)

Destroy What Destroys You - The Good Boy review by griggs

From the synopsis, you know you’re in Kubrick country. Good Boy dares you not to think of A Clockwork Orange, yet still feels like its own thing, darkly comic in places. Stephen Graham leans into it with huge glasses, safari shirt and uncanny wig, like a youth worker bingeing late-night telly.

What really works is how slippery the power dynamic is. Andrea Riseborough gives the film its heart, playing someone who’s both victim and potential avenger, while Anson Boon completes the trio, more fragile and feral than you first assume. The film keeps you asking who’s more damaged, and how much of it is rehabilitation, grooming, or a very elaborate act of payback.

Tonally it wobbles now and then, and one element is frustratingly left hanging, but the unease sticks. The revenge angle is never as clean as you expect, which is exactly the point. You come away feeling like you’ve watched something properly twisted rather than just another “psycho of the week” drama.

Stagey, Wordy, Abduction Drama Written/Directed by Poles, which Jars Somewhat in Social Terms - The Good Boy review by PV

This film seems very derivative - of so many 'detain dramas' where people are abducted and imprisoned. THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES (2009) is THE classic one, but there are many.

The plot and character arcs make political/social points bluntly, as in sledgehammered, but it's a decent enough watch, if unbelievable.

I was frustrated by the lack of information here, on character backstories and dark whispered parts of the plot and motivation for a random abduction. It seemed almost dystopian fantasy at times, with the odd 1950s-style family (and we know the father is a baddie as he says LONDON'S NOT WHAT IT WAS - he fails to pass the diversity-worship test so is branded a baddie from the start). The boy claims to be 10 but sounds 13 which is odd.

It felt very stagey and wordy, could have been a theatre play - the first-time (Polish) screenwriter will no doubt have a theatre background. The studio scenes are filmed in Warsaw in Poland too, and I found the whole setting odd. Maybe the Polish director does not realise how much such a mansion would cost in the UK, even Yorkshire? Stephen Graham the actor could afford it of course, but would someone with his accent who does not work be able to? Nothing is explained and it jars. Maybe he won the lottery eh? Maybe a British director/writer could have seen the lack of consistency here with socio-economic class issues?

The accents jar too - the abducted boy has a very broad local accent (Leeds?) yet seemingly lives in a detached executive home. For me, as a Brit, that needs explanation.

Anyway, watchable enough - the sort of thing that used to be PLAY FOR TODAY or similar, made for TV. This is not a cinematic film - outdoor scenes of lovely Yorkshire landscapes notwithstanding.

3 stars therefore BUT just watch THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES to see how it's done.