Good Boys (Movie)

## Good Boys

The poster for the film

**Good Boys** is a 2019 American comedy film directed by Gene Stupnitsky, in his directorial debut, and written by Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg. ([3] [4] ) The film starred Jacob Tremblay, Keith Williams, and Brady Noon as three sixth-graders, who will find themselves involved in a series of misadventures as they shall try to attend a party hosted by their popular classmates. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg must serve as producers through their Point Grey Pictures banner. ( [5] ) The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 11, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 16, 2019, by Universal Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and has grossed $107 million worldwide on a $20 million budget.

## Synopsis

Invited to his first kissing party, 12-year-old Max asked his best friends, Lucas and Thor, for some much-needed help on how to pucker up. When they hit a dead end, Max decided to use his father's drone to spy on the teenage girls next door. When the boys can lose the drone, they shall skip school and hatch a plan to retrieve it before Max's dad can figure out what happened.

## Plot

The film started with Max (Jacob Tremblay) playing a fantasy online game. He enlarged the breasts on an orc before getting ready to masturbate. His father (Will Forte) came in to let him know that he is going away for the weekend and to be careful with the new drone that he has. Max's dad then realized what his son was about to do and gave him "the talk" over it before going to tell his wife, leaving Max embarrassed.

Max hung out with his best friends, Thor (Brady Noon) and Lucas (Keith L. Williams). Together, they shall call themselves "The Bean Bag Boys". They can hang out at Thor's house where they are annoyed by his younger sister, Annabelle. The boys will then play a game where Thor ended up with a baseball card valued at up to $600.

The next day, the boys may go to the skate park so Max can check out his crush, Brixlee (Millie Davis). He and Thor are then met by the "cool" boys, led by Atticus (Chance Hurstfield). He brought the boys to a hidden spot in the park where he pulled out a beer bottle. They can take turns sipping it, but when it got to Thor, he chickened out despite bragging about sipping tons of beers. Atticus started to mock Thor and gave him the name "Sippy Cup."

Lucas went home to his parents (Retta and Lil Rel Howery) giving him his favorite meal (lasagna and orange soda), only to drop the news on him that they are getting a divorce.

At school, the boys are in choir class, and Max can see that Lucas is upset, but he won't tell him or Thor about the divorce. Thor wanted to sign up for the upcoming performance of "Rock of Ages," but he backed out when Atticus saw him signing up and said that singing is for "try-hards." Later during lunch, Max is called over by another popular boy named Soren (Izaac Wang). He invited Max to a "kissing party", where all the girls, including Brixlee, will attend. Max asked if he can invite Thor and Lucas too, but Soren thought that they are "too random." Max promised that they will be well-behaved.

After school, the boys will try to find out how to kiss to prepare for the party. They can look up porn to try and see it for themselves, only to be disgusted at what they must witness. They shall then find a sex doll (which they will think is for CPR) and practice on it as well. The boys can then use Max's dad's drone to spy on his neighbor Hannah (Molly Gordon) and her friend Lily (Midori Francis) to see how to kiss. They must observe Hannah's sort-of boyfriend, Benji (Josh Caras), coming over to deliver drugs, but after Hannah placed him in the friend zone, Benji rudely told her off. The girls can then see the drone in the sky and catch it with a pool net. The boys will run over to try and get the drone back, but the girls will refuse to do so due to the boys spying on them.

When the boys can get back to Max's house, Thor revealed that he stole Hannah's bag. They can dump out the contents and find a bottle of vitamins that they shall struggle to open. Hannah's phone then rang, and they will tell the boys that there is something of value in the bag. They can all meet up at the playground to make the exchange, but when the girls shall mention that there is molly in the bag, the boys are hesitant to give the drugs back to keep them off the streets. Max then got the idea to use the drone's remote to fly it out of the girls' reach, but he accidentally ended up steering it into the path of a school bus, completely destroying the drone. The boys will then run off to school to get away from the girls, but they can beat them to the school first. Lucas then called out for SCAB, which is known as the school's anti-bullying group, to protect them, but it only humiliated Max and Thor. They must later hide in the bathroom and decide to skip school to try and get a new drone before Max's dad came home.

The boys will go back to Thor's house to get the rare card to sell it. They shall find a buyer, who agreed to get the card and will meet them at the house. The boys will then get a bunch of "weapons" (actually sex toys) from Thor's parents' closet. The buyer, Claude (Stephen Merchant), arrived. The boys will suspect that he might be a pedophile, but after seeing that he is harmless, they let him in. As they are about to give Claude the card, Lucas backed out and said that the card is representative of their friendship. Claude then spotted the sex doll, which the boys claimed was Thor's mom, and he offered them $400 for it. They shall take the money, and Claude left after saying that he would have paid more for it.

With the money in hand, the boys will ride their bikes to the mall, but they are found by Hannah and Lily, who were tracking them because they still have Hannah's phone. The boys shall try to ride away from them, but Lily chased them on foot. Lucas ended up crashing his bike and flew into a truck, severely dislocating his arm. Max scared Lily away by telling the truck driver that she's their babysitter, who is trying to molest them, so she bolted out of there and jumped back into Hannah's car. Max and Thor will pull Lucas away and go to pop his arm back into place. During this time, Lucas admitted that things won't hurt less since his parents are divorcing.

The boys will go to a convenience store to get medicine for Lucas, while Thor decided to smuggle a beer to impress the cool kids. A cop, Officer Sacks (Sam Richardson), walked in. Max and Lucas will panic and try to act "normal", but Lucas cracked under pressure and admitted that they are carrying drugs. Thor also admitted by trying to smuggle the beer in his pants, but Sacks took the beer and the drugs and promised not to report them as long as they can stop annoying him. Thinking that he is lying, the boys will lock him inside the store using one of Thor's parents' dildos. Thor also managed to sneak another beer in his jacket.

The mall is in sight, but the boys will discover that they must cross a highway. They shall get past the first few lanes easily since traffic is moving easily, but once they will get to the next set of lanes, the cars can start moving faster. The boys shall get nervous, but Max ran first, followed by Lucas, and then Thor almost made it but dropped his beer and then caused a major accident as cars swerve to avoid hitting him. The boys shall then run to the mall, only to be told by the saleswoman at the store that the drone that they ordered was sold to two girls, which are Hannah and Lily. They also left the boys a note for where to meet them.

The boys shall meet the girls in a tunnel, where they can reveal to Hannah and Lily that they don't have the drugs. They will order Max, Thor, and Lucas to buy them again from Benji at his frat house, but Hannah reminded them not to say that she sent them there. They will almost succeed in getting the drugs, but Lucas once again blabbed that Hannah sent them. Benji refused to give up the drugs, so Max pulled out a paintball gun from Thor's house and demanded that they get the drugs since he is desperate to go to the party. An air horn blew and startled Max, causing him to accidentally hit Benji with a paintball. His frat brothers will start trying to fight the boys, but they can keep getting hit with paintballs. Thor got punched in the face, and Lucas accidentally flipped a guy onto a table. They shall grab the drugs and run to the girls.

The girls shall drop the boys off somewhere after making their trade, but Lucas and Thor no longer have interest in going to the party. Max then got a call from his dad saying that he got an early flight back and that he is headed home in 15 minutes. Max flew the drone back toward his house and entered through the chimney, but the camera lens got covered in soot, making it hard to see. Max tried to navigate through memory and accidentally destroyed his dad's office, but put the drone back in place. His dad saw the mess and angrily told his son that he is grounded for a month. The boys will then get into an argument as Max told Thor and Lucas that Soren only invited him and not them. Max also called Thor out on not auditioning for the play just because he cared what the other boys shall think. They all start crying and go home individually.

At Max's house, Max's parents scold him as he took the full blame for the day's events. In Thor's room, Thor's mom informed him of this and thought that her boy is innocent. She tells him to promise to not do it again. At Lucas' house, Lucas naturally told his parents everything, but they will think that he is just stressed out over the divorce and just try to give him some helpful advice.

Later that night, Lucas goes to Max's house and convinces him to sneak out to go to the party. He tricks Max and Thor into meeting up again to try and reconcile, but neither one wanted to deal with the other. The boys will enter Soren's house and go to the basement. Thor took out his beer bottle and tried to beat Soren's record of three sips. He made it to four sips and was no longer known as "Sippy Cup," which even impressed Soren. The kids will then gather to play Spin The Bottle. After witnessing one kiss, Lucas is grossed out and he excused himself to stay upstairs to play VR. Brixlee then spun, and the bottle pointed to Thor. Knowing how Max felt about her, Thor gave up his turn. Atticus started trying to make fun of him again, but Max shut him up. He followed Thor and tried to apologize for their fight, but he told Max that what he said about him holding himself back is true. He encouraged Max to go after what he wanted. Max approached Brixlee and asked to kiss her. She said yes, and Max got his first kiss.

Upstairs, Thor joined Lucas. Hannah and Lily will show up, high off their gourds, as it is revealed that Lily is Soren's older sister. The girls will ask the boys what they shall really want, and Lucas said that he just wanted to play video games. Thor admitted his passion for singing, and the girls will ask him to sing. He stated to sing "I Wanna Know What Love Is." This played over a montage of him going to audition for "Rock of Ages", despite auditions being over, and he ended up winning the part of Stacee Jaxx. Over the next month, Max went out with Brixlee, but she broke up with him. He started going out with another girl, Taylor, but she left him for Brixlee. Lucas went on to join SCAB to protect other kids, while Thor performed in the show and got beloved by his friends, family, and classmates.

Thor's family threw a party to celebrate the play. Max showed up with a new girlfriend, Scout, while Lucas is there with a new friend that played video games with him. Max told Thor that he is no longer grounded. The boys will acknowledge that while they may end up going separate ways, they shall vow to be together for all of the important events. The three can share a big hug, but before they must go, Thor invited Max and Lucas to go upstairs for a surprise. They will go to his parents' room to find a giant swing. They can play on it for a while until Annabelle came in to tell them that their parents have sex in it.

## Cast

* Jacob Tremblay as Max
* Keith L. Williams as Lucas
* Brady Noon as Thor
* Molly Gordon as Hannah
* Midori Francis as Lilly
* Izaac Wang as Soren
* Millie Davis as Brixlee
* Josh Caras as Benji
* Will Forte as Max's dad [6]
* Mariessa Portelance as Max's mom
* Lil Rel Howery as Lucas' dad
* Retta as Lucas' mom [7]
* Michaela Watkins as Saleswoman
* Christian Darrel Scott as Marcus
* Macie Juiles as Taylor
* Chance Hurtsfield as Atticus
* Enid-Raye Adams as Thor's mom
* Sam Richardson as Officer Sacks
* Benita Ha as Soren's mother
* Alexander Calvert as Daniel
* Lina Renna as Annabelle
* Zoriah Wong as Scout
* Lee Eisenberg as Leigh Eisenberg
* Stephen Merchant as Claude
* Barack Obama as Obama

## Production

On August 16, 2017, it was announced that Seth Rogen's Point Grey Pictures and Good Universe would want to produce a comedy film together from writers, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who will both also make their directorial debut. The film was produced by Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Nathan Kahane, and Joe Drake.[8] In March 2018, Jacob Tremblay was cast in the film, titled *Good Boys*, to which Universal Pictures bought the distribution rights. ( [9] )

The film was shot in Vancouver. ( [10] ) Stupnitsky received sole director credit.

### Controversy

Controversy over the making of the film arose when TMZ leaked photos of Keith L. Williams' stand-in substitute in blackface. [11] [12] [13] Both Williams and his stand-in are African-American, but the latter is light-skinned. [14] [15] [16] Rogen issued an apology over the controversy. [17] [18] [19] [20]

## Release

The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 11, 2019. [21] *Good Boys* was theatrically released on August 16, 2019 by Universal Pictures. [22]

### Home media

*Good Boys* is scheduled to be released on Digital HD on October 29, 2019 and on DVD and Blu-ray on November 12, 2019. [23]

## Reception

### Box office

As of October 7, 2019, *Good Boys* has grossed $82.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $25.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $107.6 million. [2]

In the United States and Canada, *Good Boys* was projected to gross $12–15 million from 3,204 theaters in its opening weekend. [24] It made $8.3 million on its first day, including $2.1 million from Thursday night previews. It overperformed and went on to debut to $21 million, becoming the first R-rated comedy since *The Boss* (April 2016) to finish first at the box office. [25] The film made $11.6 million in its second weekend and $9.5 million in its third, finishing second behind *Angel Has Fallen* both times. [26] [27]

### Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film held an approval rating of 79% based on 217 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "*Good Boys* is undermined by an eagerness to repeatedly indulge in profane humor, but its appealing cast and ultimately thoughtful message often shine through."[28] Metacritic collected 44 reviews and assessed 27 as positive, 14 as mixed, and 3 as negative; it gave the film a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews". ([29]) Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 83% and a 61% "definite recommend." [25]

Critic Richard Roeper of the *Chicago Sun-Times* gave the film a rating of three stars out of four, who commented that "for all its wacky, gross-out, shock-ya humor, *Good Boys* has a lot of heart." [30]