During 1978 in the Pennsylvania countryside, an absent father faces a strange experience as he is introduced to his teenage children who have no goal and are always fascinated by crime.
There's something bold about the film's wealth of imagery, but it also so overstates the material of the screenplay that it eventually annihilates both it and the story.
EmanuelLevy.Com
November 24, 2004
Though beginning as a tale about alienated youth, the film quickly devolves into a melodrama of a son (Sean Penn) corrupted by his own father (Christopher Walken) in a valueless world.
Director James Foley and screenwriter Nicholas Kazan expertly recreate that part of America that feels like it should exist under a rock with the clammy mud and scurrying insects, and their efforts are supported by an intense performance from Walken.
