Film / Good Boys

Good Boys is a 2019 comedy film directed by Gene Stupnitsky and co-produced by Seth Rogen's Point Grey Pictures and Good Universe.

Invited to his first kissing party, 12-year-old Max (Jacob Tremblay) asks his best friends Lucas (Keith L. Williams) and Thor (Brady Noon) for some much-needed help on how to pucker up. When they hit a dead end, Max decides to use his father's drone to spy on the teenage girls (Molly Gordon and Midori Francis) next door. When the boys lose the drone, they skip school and hatch a plan to retrieve it before Max's dad can figure out what happened.

A red band trailer was released on March 11th, 2019 and was released on August 16th of that same year.

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The film provides examples of:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: The Bean Bag Boys.
• Adorably Precocious Child: All 3 boys have their moments, but Max especially.
  Max: "We're not kids, we're tweens."
• Advertised Extra: All of Annabelle's scenes are featured in the trailers, although she only shows up briefly.
• Advertising by Association: The poster mentions that it's "from the guys that brought you Superbad, Neighbors, and Sausage Party".
• All for Nothing: Max succeeds in securing the girls' consent to give him a new drone to replace his father's broken one (and he doesn't even have to spend his own money on it), but in the process of flying the drone back to his home he destroys much of the home's inner contents that leads to his parents grounding him. The only upside to this is that Max still has the cash from the customer who bought the sex doll from him.
• Ambiguously Gay: Thor is into musical theater and singing and spends the entire movie projecting a tough guy, hyper-masculine image that he ultimately admits is a falsehood. Though he's probably not old enough to feel any real attraction, he has all the other hallmarks of a kid in the closet.
• Am I Just a Toy to You?: Hannah says that Max, Thor and Lucas are all disrespectful to women for trying to spy on them kissing. Lucas retorts, "My mom's my best friend!"
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Thor's sister, Annabelle.
• Atomic F-Bomb: Max, when his dad's drone is destroyed.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The boys get easily distracted by texts from their phones, including when they get forced to cross a freeway.
• Black and Nerdy: Lucas
• Blackmail: The 2 rival teams of A). the Bean Bag Boys and B). Hannah and Lily inflict blackmail on each other in which Team B has the drone and Team A has Thor stealing the girls' ecstasy bottle.
• Breaking the Fellowship: In the end the boys accept that their paths in life are diverging and they see less and less of each other; but they vow to still try and be there for each other for the big stuff.
• The Bully: Atticus towards Thor for calling him a "sippy cup". He comes the closest to the movie having a Big Bad.
  • Benji is also implied to be this towards Hannah.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Max liked to make his avatar large-breasted in spite of it being a female green ogre.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Or, Chekhov's paintball gun. Max in his Took a Level in Badass moment points it at Benji demanding the ecstasy that Hannah and Lily are demanding in return for the quadcopter drone.
  • The dildo that Thor found in his parents' bean bag. The boys use that dildo to "pretzel" the door handles to the freeway convenience store to keep Officer Sacks from pursuing them (not that Sacks planned or wanted to do so, as he was not in the mood to arrest anyone that day).
• Cool Teacher: Thor looks up to Mr. K, the young and hip music teacher, whose school musical version of Rock of Ages includes scenes where the tween actors have sex and use cocaine. This, coupled with his apparent backstory as a wannabe Hollywood star, means his students are probably the only people who think he's cool.
• Content Warnings: The poster makes it very clear that in spite of having three sixth graders as the main characters, the film's not for kids as they put the R rating in the center with the MPAA's description:
  "Strong crude sexual content, drug and alcohol material, and language throughout - all involving tweens"
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: When Hannah learns why the boys were spying on her with the drone, she observes that they could have just looked up 'How to Kiss' online rather than go to all this trouble.
• Cringe Comedy: A lot. Highlights include when the boys run across a moving highway, when Lucas breaks his arm and they try to fix it, when they have mistaken their parents' sex toys for things like weapons, CPR dolls, necklaces, etc.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Max does get to kiss Brixlee, but their relationship is short-lived, they break up and he is forced to find another girl to date.
• Distaff Counterpart: Hannah and Lily to the boys. Just like them, the girls are willing to do anything, up to and including larceny and blackmail in order to achieve their goal: the boys' is to retrieve the drone and go to the party, the girls' is getting to the concert and get high.
• The Dragon: Lily to Hannah. While Hannah is the one who took the drone because the boys were spying on her and leads the effort to get the ecstasy back, Lily acts as her accomplice and enforcer and proves to be the bigger physical threat when she chases the boys down on foot.
• Drugs Are Bad: Their justification for keeping Lily and Hannah from getting their molly back. That still doesn't stop them from stealing/drinking a beer and pretending to use cocaine in a school concert performance.
• Embarrassing Nickname: “Sippy Cup” for Thor.
  • There's the frat boy being hazed called "Dickless", whose real name we never find out.
• Entitled to Have You: Benji has this attitude with Hannah. He sees himself as a "Nice Guy" who feels entitled to get a kiss from her when he gets her molly.
• Evil Redhead: Downplayed with Benji, who's more of an asshole than evil, as he serves as one of the main antagonists in the movie.
• Foreshadowing: Lily takes the initiative in dealing with the boys, citing that she has experience with her own younger brother. Her younger brother turns out to be Soren.
• Foul Ball Pit: A deleted scene had the boys hanging out at a Suck E. Cheese's in a ball pit, until they start vomiting. Eddie finds a toy in his mouth which prompts the boys to "get the fuck out of here" just as a bunch of little kids come.
• Freudian Trio: The Bean Bag Boys.
  • Max is the Ego. He's the self-appointed leader, the smartest of the three, and uses logic and reason to get the other two to do what he says.
  • Thor is the rambunctious, recalcitrant Id. Steals beer from a store under a policeman's nose.
  • Lucas is the calm, peace-loving Superego even if his cowardice makes him scream out classified information that drags down the three boys into even more trouble.
• Friendship Trinket: Max gifts Brixlee with a necklace (it's actually anal beads). Brixlee has a hard time putting it on her neck (and she didn't like the smell of it), so she turns it down but still thanks him for it.
• Fun with Acronyms: S.C.A.B. - Student Coalition Against Bullying.
• Groin Attack: After whipping out the paintball gun, Max shoots frat boys in their testicles.
• Heel–Face Turn: Hannah and Lily wind up befriending the boys and help Thor continue pursuing his love of singing.
• Hero of Another Story: From the perspective of Hannah and Lily, the boys intruded on their privacy and stole Hannah's personal belongings. To them, the girls' antagonizing of the boys is about teaching respect and getting back what is rightfully theirs.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: During the fight between the Bean Bag Boys and the teenage boys at the frat house, Thor uses the frat's own spanking paddles against them to save a paintball gun-armed Max just in time from being tackled. Lucas also flips over a frat boy slamming him onto his own table.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Well, tween, but aside from that, Max fits the bill. His dad even almost catches him in the act!
• Hypocritical Humor: In the teaser trailer, Seth informs the boys that, although they were allowed to swear, commit acts of violence, and use drugs, they won't be allowed to watch the trailer for the movie because it's too intense for them. Unsurprisingly, they didn't like the news.
  Seth: "Welcome to Hollywood."
• Idiot Ball: At the highway scene, traffic started out slow. The Bean Bag Boys are hesitant to cross through even at a time when the cars are going at no faster than 5 mph. Literally halfway, they stop to check on a text. Then, the traffic resumes back to the usual 50+ mph. Hilarity Ensues as they try to cross the second half of the freeway.
• Jump Scare: Lucas suddenly appears at Max's window with a Halloween mask after Max is grounded. It even comes complete with a Scare Chord!
• Karma Houdini: Zigzagged with Hannah and Lily, who never face criminal charges for their crimes of larceny, blackmailing, and use of illegal drugs. But they're not the only ones to escape justice - Max, Lucas, and Thor also avoid legal punishment for the same crimes, even after they get caught and confess to Officer Sacks.
• Lecherous Stepparent: The porn film that the Bean Bag Boys stumble upon when trying to learn how to kiss, a parody of the popularity of "step-incest" porn at the time.
  Lucas: Is that what happens when you get a stepmom?
• MacGuffin: Max is forced to buy or find a new quadcopter drone to replace the one his dad had before he accidentally flew it straight into a school bus.
• Mature Work, Child Protagonists: The film is R-rated, and is about three preteen boys attempting to get invited to a kissing party held by a popular student in middle school.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: After Lucas rams himself into a delivery truck, Max and Thor are able to scare Lily away by calling her their babysitter trying to have sex with them.
  • Thor tells the British-accented card game buyer that he looks more like a pedophile than anyone he knows. It doesn't help that Max was wearing a bondage hood and holding a sex whip at the time.
• Oh, Crap!: As the Bean Bag Boys attempt to flee Hannah’s car, Lucas Screams Like a Little Girl when he looks at his mirror and sees Lily chasing them on foot.
• On the Rebound: Brixlee breaks up with Max, who then gets with Brixlee's best friend, she breaks up with him, and he ends up with another girl by Thor's party.
• The Peeping Tom: Due to their lack of Internet proficiency, the Bean Bag Boys think that spying on couples kissing through a quadcopter drone is their best chance of learning how to kiss.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Lucas despite being only 11 is capable of flipping over a teenager much taller than he is as demonstrated in the frat house shootout.
• Police Are Useless: Officer Sacks is incredibly lenient with the boys, letting them go for carrying drugs (even if it wasn't theirs) and only giving Thor a warning for trying to steal one beer bottle. Thor still succeeds in stealing the beer by hiding it in his jacket. They reward him for all the discretion he shows by trapping him in the convenience store with a dildo.
• Poor Man's Porn: Max uses a video game's Character Customization menu for this before his dad interrupts. From the looks of it, he's into the game's Amazonian Beauties. He and his friends later discover real porn, though, and are disgusted by it.
• The Reveal: Lily turns out to be Soren's sister.
• Rule of Three:
  • There are three Bean Bag Boys: Max, Thor and Lucas.
  • The previous record for how many sips of alcohol done by a 5th grader has been 3. Thor endeavors to beat it.
• Running Gag:
  • Max will usually mention an illegal activity Atticus' parents did when he's being a dick.
  • Lucas is unable to keep secrets and will blurt out whatever he and his friends did wrong.
  • The boys are oblivious to what the sex toys really are and constantly play around with them (until they learn the truth from Annabelle, who somehow knows despite being younger than they are).
• Same Race Means Related: It's treated as a big reveal that Lily and Soren, the only two Asian youths, are siblings.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Lucas. Even under less tense circumstances (ie, an air horn being blown), he still lets out a high-pitched squeal.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Lily bolts when the boys lie and tell an adult she’s their babysitter who tried having sex with them.
• Shoplifting: Thor succeeds in stealing a beer bottle from the store in front of a police officer by hiding it in his jacket. The officer did catch Thor storing a bottle under his pants in the groin area, but after the officer told Thor to put it back, Thor just hid it in his jacket and ran away.
• Shipper on Deck: Brixlee's friend, who acts as go-between with Max and seems to be more invested in them getting together than Brixlee herself.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Hey, Stranger Things! Go fuck yourself!" The Token Minority of the group is also named Lucas, as well.
  • The boys having to cross a freeway is similar to the objective of Frogger.
  • "What the fuck are you looking at, Gandalf?"
  • "Winter is coming."
• Spin the Bottle: The boys play Spin the Bottle at Soren's party. Lucas leaves to play VR after he witnesses a Spit-Trail Kiss. The bottle lands on Thor during Brixlee's turn. Thor refuses, gives Max a speech about growing apart, and Max finally gets his Big Damn Kiss with Brixlee.
• Surveillance Drone: Max is forced to find a replacement for the quadcopter drone his dad owns but was destroyed after it gets flown straight into a school bus.
• Their First Time: Max aims to make Brixlee the first girl he kisses.
• Took a Level in Badass: Max after he agrees to help Hannah and Lily obtain the ecstasy pills from Benji. Benji refuses, and Max gets fed up with all the shit he's gone through and whips out a paintball gun (impersonating it as a real firearms weapon).
  Max: (whips out paintball gun, points at Benji) BITCH!! NOW WHO'S THE BABY?!!
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The film stars three preteens who get involved in adult situations.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Although the town is never mentioned by name, several vehicles have Illinois license plates, and one of the girls plans to go to "the city" on the weekend.
• Would Hurt a Child: Though the frat boys are only barely adult age, when the trio start attacking them after Max mistakenly lets one of the paintball pellets go, they all go out against them, with one even sucker punching Thor in the face.

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