young actors bring their light to a dark topic; All three young actors who play the leads deliver solid performances that make them effortless tour guides through their intersecting stories
Reinaldo Marcus Green's "Good Joe Bell" has its heart in the right place, but the limited gaze the writers and director offer withholds this redemptive tale from being the uplifting critique of homophobia and bullying that it needs to be
it's a great movie about teenagers that does not talk down to them or patronize them, and I think that it's a great movie for them and for everyone because we were all there once
even in the noir climax, "Beast Beast's" ideas about validation and integrity are worth a grapple; while that anti-internet message is no revelation, there's enough promising craft in this film that Madden may become an artist himself
"Beast Beast" is a timely story set in the American south about three teenagers from first-time feature filmmaker Danny Madden; he delivers a bold story with characters interacting in ways that couldn't be predicted