This is a silly little film.
It’s also reasonably well plotted, crisply paced, family-friendly and — given the proper frame of mind — a lot of fun. Director Trish Sie and scripter Sarah Rothschild toss a quartet of energetic children into a “suspense lite” scenario; while the results certainly won’t set the cinema world on fire, there’s no denying the entertainment value. (You'll find it via Netflix.)
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| Having successfully captured an intruder, our young heroes — from left, Mim (Cree Cicchino, Lewis (Lucas Jaye), Kevin (Maxwell Simkins) and Clancy (Sadie Stanley) — are about to learn that he's a WITSEC handler ... in other words, a good guy. |
It’s also refreshing, given the genre, that a) these kids are not insufferable brats whose sole purpose is to make all adults look stupid; and b) the story does not succumb to the needless destruction of personal and public property.
But yes: We do get a car chase.
Adolescent Kevin Finch (Maxwell Simkins) is introduced while fabricating a whopper during a classroom presentation designed to share each student’s family life: an apparently frequent tendency toward wild exaggeration that fails to amuse his teacher. 15-year-old sister Clancy (Sadie Stanley) has a crush on senior Travis (Matthew Grimaldi); she’s also an accomplished cello player, but too shy to perform in public.
To Clancy’s greater mortification, parents Margot (Malin Åkerman) and Ron (Ken Marino) refuse to give her a phone, leaving her the only kid in the entire school without one (she insists).
To add insult to injury, Clancy’s savvy, über-cool best friend Mim (Cree Cicchino) always is glued to her phone.
Clancy further believes that her parents are hopelessly square. Dad, an accomplished pastry chef, forever embarrasses her by (among other things) “working out” — in public — with tiny finger-grippers. Ron actually fits that characterization: Marino, well remembered as smarmy Vinnie Van Lowe on TV’s Veronica Mars, plays the guy as a good-natured doofus.
Margot, though, has a bit of an edge; we catch a glimpse when, as school lunch monitor, she confronts a trio of disrespectful eighth-grade jerks.
On this otherwise average evening, Kevin is hosting best friend Lewis (Lucas Jaye) on a sleepover; Ron, determined to wean the boys from video games, insists they camp out in the back yard. This doesn’t sit well with timid Lewis, unable to enjoy kid-hood due to a helicopter mother who relentlessly broadcasts his many physical and emotional ailments and shortcomings (more perceived than real, we suspect).
Clancy, despite being grounded for smart-mouthing her mother, intends to sneak out with Mim, in order to attend a party at Travis’ house (while his parents are away). After all, he invited her.
Things go oddly awry when a pair of dark-clad menacing types — Elise (Enuka Okuma) and Baxter (Harry Aspinwall) — break into their comfortable Cape Cod home and remove Ron and Margot at gunpoint. Lewis, the only witness to this, breathlessly tells the others — safe in the back yard tent — that Clancy and Kevin’s parents have been “kidnapped by ninjas.”
Turns out Margot’s entire family life has been courtesy of the Witness Protection Program; Elise and Baxter are part of her unsavory past, when — then named “Mathilde” — they all were part of a high-tech burglary ring. Next stop: similarly abducting Mathilde’s criminal ex-fiancé Leo (Joe Manganiello), also believing himself protected by a new government-provided identity.
The caper: the fabled Crown of Duramuran, once exhibited in the Louvre, now to be worn by visiting royalty hosted at a posh Boston society ball. Elise and Baxter want to steal it, and they demand Margot and Leo’s assistance … under threat of, well, being killed instead.
Fortunately, Margot left just enough of a clue, back at home, for our four wannabe sleuths to trail her, while gradually deducing the reason for this crazy mess.
What follows is preposterous, to say the least … but it’s all in good fun. The snarky one-liners and (mostly gentle) sight gags are hit and miss, but Sie and editor Jonathan Schwartz conceal weaker moments via brisk pacing. Marino and Manganiello have a lot of fun milking Ron’s testosterone-challenged insecurity in the face of Leo’s well-built physique; at the other extreme, the contents of Margot’s hitherto concealed storage unit remain a shamefully wasted opportunity.
Stanley deftly handles Clancy’s transition from shy wallflower to resolute young adult; the irrepressible Simkins keeps Kevin’s antics amusing, without becoming tiresome or obnoxious. (The booger sequence probably crosses the line, but younger viewers will love it.)
Cicchino’s Mim sheds a bit of her condescending edge, becoming more compassionate; Jaye, in turn, persuasively conveys timid Lewis’ discovery of his better, braver self.
All four work well as a group, and it’s clear that everybody had a great time making this film.
Once Margot’s previous life is exposed, Åkerman becomes a kick-ass mother tiger with slick moves; she and Manganiello share a crisply choreographed action sequence, when Margot and Leo take out a succession of society ball guards.
Erik Griffin makes the most of his supporting role as Margot’s rather hapless WITSEC handler.
Sie’s film runs a bit long, at 100 minutes, and she relies too heavily on a soundtrack of paralyzingly loud pop tunes (several of them cool songs, but still). That said, she and her engaging cast build up plenty of good will along the way.
I can think of far worse ways to spend a family movie evening.
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