Salt Lake Tribune Review

"The Boys Are Back" is a fine example of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.

The irresistible force is the charisma and complete lack of sentimentality in Clive Owen's acting. The immovable object is the undeniable sentimentality of Simon Carr's fact-based novel and Allan Cubitt's screenplay adaptation of it. The combination, under the artful eye of director Scott Hicks ("Shine"), is an emotionally affecting drama that works because Owen makes the movie earn its sentimentality.

Owen plays Joe Warr, a globe-travelling British-born sportswriter who only occasionally lives with his loving wife, Katy (Laura Fraser, from "A Knight's Tale"), and 6-year-old son, Arthur (Nicholas McAnulty), in their home in Australia. Soon, though, Katy succumbs to a fast-moving cancer (in a swift series of scenes that reflect the emotional shock of a loved one's death), and Joe must become a full-time single parent for Arthur.

At first, Joe is determined to make life as much fun as possible for Arthur, full of pillow fights, trips to the beach and an overall lack of rules. But Joe's parental theory of "just say yes" is tested when Harry (George MacKay), his teen son from a previous marriage in Britain, moves in. Soon, family jealousy emerges: Harry's envy for Arthur, and Arthur's envy for a classmate's mother (Emma Booth) to whom Joe draws close.

There are enough tears to be jerked in this story for a half-dozen remakes of "The Notebook," and Hicks does an admirable job of never giving in and taking any easy melodramatic shortcuts. He presents these characters' grief in human terms, with reactions that aren't always saintly or even sympathetic.

But it's Owen's gruff refusal to play by the rules of the Hollywood "weepie" that makes "The Boys Are Back" so powerful. Owen is better known as an action star ("Inside Man," "Duplicity," "The International"), and those impulses match well with Joe's strenuous efforts to keep up a brave face after Katy's death. But when Joe's façade finally cracks, and Owen lets go emotionally, it's with the force of a dam bursting.

-- Sean P. Means

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