Cool Rider: Maxwell Caulfield Blogathon – The Boys Next Door (1985)

This is part of the  Cool Rider: Maxwell Caulfield Blogathon being run by Gabriella of Pale Writer.

Tnx for letting me take part!

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“Two seconds of pain, Roy.” – Bo

Number of Times Seen – at least twice (cable in the 80’s and 22 Nov 2020)

Brief Synopsis – Two friends dabble in petty crimes which escalates into more dangerous areas.

My Take on it – This was my obvious choice when Gabriella announced this bloagthon.

I recalled seeing it on cable as a kid, yet didn’t remember much besides he basic premise of it all.

Unfortunately, this story isn’t engaging enough for the viewer and gets completely out of control early on.

The casting of Charlie Sheen and Maxwell Caulfield were nice choices, yet I think it might have been more effective if they would have reversed the roles that they play.

This is a film that is able to show how it is possible for petty crimes to find ways to escalate into much larger and more nefarious crimes.

This can especially be true for characters like these with no real solid direction in their lives.

The characters are not meant to be very likable and that actually hurts things because it makes it very difficult to sympathize with them or with anything that they do here.

The law enforcement characters in the film are portrayed as being quite lethargic and incompetent which makes things far too unbalanced and uneven ass the story plays out in somewhat predictable ways.

Bottom Line – Intriguing idea that unfortunately doesn’t work well enough. Casting Sheen and Caulfield in these roles was a wise choice, but perhaps they should have reversed the roles. The film is able to show how small crimes can easily lead to larger ones especially for people without much direction in life. The characters are not ones that are meant to be likable and that makes it even harder to care about what happens to them along the way. The law enforcement characters are a bit too cliched and incompetent which causes problems since it makes things so uneven and unbalanced as the story unfolds.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Actor Crispin Glover auditioned for the part of Bo and tested with Maxwell Caulfield. According to the audio commentary for the film, Director Penelope Spheeris said Glover’s performance was “too psychotic”. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)

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