Review by Gary Tooze

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Description: A teenager and his kid brother spar with their mother's shady new boyfriend in this dramatic thriller from veteran British... director Michael Apted. When her ex-husband remarries, Wendy (Teri Garr) feels despondent -- until she starts dating handsome, unctuous Sam (Peter Weller), an underemployed salesman with no shortage of big ideas. Excited to finally feel good about herself again, Wendy invites Sam to move in and offers to invest in his get-rich-quick schemes. None of this sits well with her sons, Jake (Christopher Collet) and Brian (Corey Haim), who remain unimpressed with Sam even after he convinces Wendy to buy Jake a motorbike. They're even less jazzed when Sam stops currying favor and turns disciplinarian even while pulling Wendy into his hard-partying lifestyle. Within a few months, Brian's on the verge of expulsion for picking fights at school, and even honor-role student Jake is mouthing off to his teachers. As for Wendy, she's too busy taking beatings and doing cocaine to notice that her family has fallen apart. It isn't until Jake gets wise to the industrial quantities of white powder squirreled away under the floorboards that he comes up with a plan to get Sam out of their lives forever. Although onetime Tiger Beat heartthrob Christopher Collet plays Firstborn's title role, the films' supporting cast is littered with actors whose stars would far eclipse his (Sarah Jessica Parker, Robert Downey Jr.) -- though in some cases only for a little while (Corey Haim).

 

 

It is to the credit of Mr. Apted, and to a cast including some very believable young actors, that ''Firstborn'' moves swiftly and smoothly enough to dispel much nitpicking about plot points, at least for a time. There's a lot about the story that finally doesn't add up, but the film manages to be engrossing all the same. For one thing, it has its share of built-in emotional force, since its key characters are a teen-age boy, his pretty, divorced mother and the new boyfriend whose presence threatens to disrupt the family. ''Firstborn'' doesn't do much of a job of examining this situation's Oedipal underpinnings, but it does succeed in exploiting them.

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BOTTOM LINE:
I wish I could say Firstborn had some real depth to it - but I can't. It's standard formulaic Hollywood without subtlety and sometimes appearing inconsistent or awkward. It's a strange choice to put to Blu-ray and at the price I don't see that too many would be keen. Don't get me wrong - I was entertained and might even revisit one day but there are, literally, 1000's of films that should reach 1080P before this one. 

Gary Tooze

July 7th, 2012