Jamesy Boy
Director: Trevor White
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 2.0
Teen James (Spencer Lofranco) - who lives with his mother (Mary-Louise Parker) and sister - keeps ending up in the Wrong Places at the Wrong Times, and his pride and hubris (and penchant for getting involved with drug dealers) land him in prison. Structurally, this is little more than an after-school special about Defying Odds and Getting On the Right Track, except the flipping back and forth between time frames (James' life as a hoodlum versus James' life as an inmate) is terribly disorienting. Why the parole board released the James character, too, remains a mystery - people with pristine in-prison records get refused the chance for release, while he's apparently in constant trouble. The suggestion that James turned a corner may have taken place in real life but the evidence is not on the screen - the poetry needs a ton of work, too.
