Rating: 
Summary: Parental Eye Opener
Review: Well I am a teacher and counselor and it is amazing to see and know what truly goes on in a child's life. This movie portrays the hardships and decisions almost every child will face sometime in their life. I hear it every day from the children who walk in and out of my office. This is a great movie and a must father--son film to watch. Enjoy!
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Summary: A sleeper wows this guy.
Review: I thought this film would have a bit more depth in its plot.It touches the surface of pedophilia. Indeed this film deals with a lonely mature boy pursued by a man that likes boys. He gives the boy all kinds of outs and the boy doesn't take them. Maybe pursued is to strong a term here..but watch the film and tell me which term to implant here. The film is done with a subtle grace. The thing I didn't like about the film is that you are always waiting to see if he ... well anyway ...I loved it, you will too.
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Summary: Troubled teenager. Kindly pedophile. Trouble.
Review: This 2001 film is set on Long Island, the title, "L.I.E" the initials of "Long Island Expressway". That's the way we New Yorkers refer to that road and we're all somewhat acquainted with the suburban communities that surround it. But yet, this is a film that could have been set anyplace and is not uniquely about Long Island.It's about a 16 year old boy, played by Paul Franklin Dano. His mother has recently died in a car accident, his father has taken up with a bimbo, and his best friend, played by Billy Kay, is clearly someone looking for trouble. Then there is an ex-marine played by Brian Cox. He's a kindly pedophile - a nice guy who just can't help himself. Put this all together, keep the action going, and this is an engaging film. The story was good, the acting fine, the tension tight. But yet, while it did hold my interest, it felt like a soap opera. I was interested in the plot, but the situation just didn't give me the emotional tug that it should have. I think it created some understanding for the pedophile. And I think it's a good film for the two young boys' acting careers. But generally, I found it lightweight.
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Summary: Fathers and Sons in the Nuclear Family Meltdown
Review: L.I.E. is one of a growing number of 1990s and post-90s films that deal with the subject of the chosen (and erotically charged) father-son relationship. Others include Our Lady of the Assassins, Wonder Boys, The Apt Pupil, and Gods and Monsters. The movie is full of beautiful mournful music and the ubiquitous zooming sounds of vehicles speeding along the Long Island Expressway. It is a superb coming-of-age story, worthy to be mentioned with Stand by Me or Y Tu Mama Tambien, but it's bolder than both of them... Bolder because it deals with the taboo of physical intimacy between men and adolescent boys. Where most movies depict pederasts as monstrous villains and one-dimensional predators, Brian Cox's John Harrigan is a nuanced character we both like and despise. In fact, given how 15-year-old Howie Blitzer's blood father Martin ignores him, focusing instead on his job, his legal troubles, and his rebound girlfriend (and blackens his son's eye in one impulsively violent scene), we're not even certain if John wouldn't be a better male presence in Howie's life than Martin! The movie shows a band of male teenagers (Howie's hangout buddies) who seem true to life, and therefore prone to popping boners unexpectedly, bawdy and inane conversation, roughhousing, and nonchalant homoeroticism. This particular teen wolfpack is more transgressive than most, adding prostitution, burglary, and incest to the mix. Yes, L.I.E. won't be for everyone. It doesn't flinch at marginal sexuality, and mentions unmentionable subjects. One last comment: Paul Franklin Dano's performance as Howie is phenomenal, some of the best teen acting I've seen. I hope this gifted actor has a huge career, not necessarily in blockbusters but in small, subtle, and intelligent films like L.I.E. The scene in which Dano's Howie recites a piece of Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," turning the tables on his would-be seducer, is stunning. It's with a shudder that we realize it's a poem about lost innocence. Congrats in fact to everyone involved in this picture.
Rating:
Summary: Shocking yet empowering at the same time.
Review: I enjoyed the film. I admit that the story has a few areas that concerned me however for the most part everything turns out OK in the end. This film shows a dark side of a preditory creature known as a chicken hawk, however it also shows an uncommon coming of age story of Howie and how he finds strength in the strangest place. It was a well made film and very well acted.
Rating:
Summary: Super Film, great on DVD
Review: This is a difficult movie on many levels.
Because it's within the reality of the real world, it's more difficult to adapt to its' world which is what we're used to in scifi or horror or period films. The eerie thing about this film is that it is going on.
It starts out about a boy, lost and abandoned by his father, on his own. And this makes him susceptible to a predator, a sexual predator who adopts young boys to consume them. This could be done in a simplistic fashion, in the sense that predator goes for little boy but there's a game going on here. The game is that the boys this man goes after are smart and it's smart characters on all sides that make a film crackle.
The boys may be inexperienced but they aren't stupid to the world or to people's intent or their value to them. Eventually it becomes a cat and mouse game of teh boy and the predator with him playing the old man much as a woman would a much older man. Creating a sexual tension to unseat the young man who lives iwth the predator and then consume him himself. Now to apply such calculation to a child may seem dark or projecting upon the film but even the characters are aware and comment on this. I think that in one way this film asserts that children, teenagers, are people, thinking, feeling, needing people. The pedophile is then put at the mercy of his addiction, his desires because once someone knows your button, especially such a dangerous button, they have a measure of control over you.
However the predator is a predator and has logically done thsi many, many times so he sees and knows the game this boy is playing with him, it's been played before. But like a true predator, the chase, the hunt is so enticing that he keeps pushing himself further and further to get his target.
What makes this movie better than just a pedophile film is that we get to see that this young boy is exploring his sexuliaty, with a crush on his roguish friend who secretly is a victim of the pedophile and others for money and favors. This movie explores the fact that no one, even children who are abandoned to their own devices by bad parents become both victims and predators themselves.
To watch the parents ignore their children until eventually the rogue boy runs away and the other boy is caught by the predator because he has no where to go. It is heartbreaking because the boy loses the rogue boy he loves, who runs away ripping off his best friend's father, and he's eventually played around with the attention of a pedophile so much that the comfort of this man's desires becomes the love he seeks. Even when the young man who the pedophile kicks out temporarily to create a seductive environment for the boy eventually lashes out at both the boy, he saves his rage for the predator.
I purposefully didn't go into actors names here because it's so vitally important that they become invisible, that they become their characters who are all linked by the Long Island Expressway. I've stood on the overpass much as the boy does and contemplated my existence, etc. and one can see a thoughtful young man being marred by love, a lack of. Though the film does show redemption as the boy eventually visits his newly imprisoned father and tells him that he loves him, supports him in his Enron-esque criminal problems, because all they have is each other. But he also warns his father that he will tolerate no more abuse, that he is a person. That lesson and self-assertion is what makes the movie, stellar and I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: A little hard to follow, with a surprise ending
Review: When the movie starts, it is a little hard to follow, to the point of frustration. There are a lot of starts and stops in the storyline where it seems that the story will go down this path, only to stop dead and switch themes entirely. Very well acted by Paul Franklin Dano. It took a lot of guts to play the role he did as well as he did. He is truly a gifted young actor. The one overwhelming sense I got from the movie is that here is a kid that is messed up, yet the only person he really has in his life is a "predator". The predator ends up being more of a father figure to Howie(Dano) than his own father. At least he loves the kid, which although it is in a sick, twisted way, is more than you can say for his father. If this is indicative of what life is like for teens these days, no wonder they're so messed up.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good
Review: Decent pace, slightly disturbing but was worth watching.
Rating:
Summary: Great Performances
Review: Although the subject matter was somewhat distasteful I must say the performances were excellent. This is especially true of the young star. To obtain such a performance out of one so young is truly a triumph for the director & his star.
Rating:
Summary: Shocking film experience, not to be missed.
Review: This film is shocking in it's ability to make you understand the dance of intimacy and it's exposed nature, as well as it's ability to change one's life. L.I.E. revolves around the friendship between a troubled 15 year old boy and a pedophile. While Howie never becomes 'prey' to Big John, it's shocking in how palpable their intimacy is. The search for connection and how difficult it can be for an adolescent is brought to vivid life through Howie, and you find yourself identifying with this kid in a way that feels oddly familliar. Anyone who has ever searched for intimacy in all the wrong places and found it when you weren't looking in a way you weren't looking will find this movie a tad painful to watch: It's realism in the emotional content is absolutely stunning. Brian Cox manages to make a pedophile seems frightening in just how easily they can morph into one of the 'regular guys' you see on the street daily. His interactions with so many different people in 'authority' and how he never raises anyone's suspicions will make you truly shudder. This is a worthwhile film and will not dissapoint if you like your films to give you a brutal glimpse of honesty.
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