SON OF A GUN (Julius Avery). 108 minutes. Opens Friday (December 19). For venues and times, see Movies, page 80. Rating: NNN
A teenage convict is taken under the wing of a hardened criminal in Son Of A Gun, but of course there’s a catch: protection on the inside means obligations on the outside.
That’s the starting point of Julius Avery‘s feature debut, which lets Brenton Thwaites – star of Oculus and The Giver – use his own Australian accent as the young hero, JR. Ewan McGregor remains Scots as lifer Brendan Lynch, who enlists short-timer JR to bust him out and be his accomplice on a daring heist. Eventually, though, our hero realizes he must weigh his loyalty against his own safety (and possibly a few million dollars).
Son Of A Gun deftly follows the beats of the crime thriller, though Avery has some trouble selling the wobbly romantic subplot between JR and a young woman (A Royal Affair’s Alicia Vikander) trapped in service to one of McGregor’s associates.
Still, when the focus is firmly on McGregor and Thwaites, the movie crackles the actors rip into the toxic father-son dynamic between their characters, and their rapport gives the key action sequences a real kick. And there’s special bonus for Justified fans: Damon Herriman has a small role, so you get to hear what Dewey Crowe sounds like speaking in his native Aussie accent.
