Pups

PUPS - DVD Movie

What do you get when a couple of 13-year-olds replay Dog Day Afternoon? The title is a clever pun on the film's inspirations (there's also a little of Reservoir Dogs rattling around the back of the picture), but it's neither a comedy nor a gritty thriller. Young Stevie (Cameron Van Hoy), bored and starved for attention (his mother has left him home alone while she's off at some New Age retreat), decides to skip school and rob a bank with his reluctant but loyal best friend-girlfriend, Rocky (Mischa Barton). Within minutes they're surrounded by cops and calling for pizzas and MTV (a sly, smarmy cameo by MTV reporter Kurt Loder) through tired FBI hostage negotiator Burt Reynolds. It's like some video game fantasy come to life, and the growing media circus gives these heretofore neglected kids their 15 minutes of fame and a sudden (if fleeting) power. Writer-director Ash (Bang) doesn't quite pull it all together, and it drags some at 100 minutes, but the meandering narrative mirrors the hairpin emotional turns of the kids while Ash's handheld camerawork and long unbroken shots capture the chaos of the situation with easy understatement. The kids are sharply drawn and startlingly refreshing, a testament to Ash's savvy writing and direction and to the skills of Van Hoy and Barton. It's a smartly made film, subtly satirical, pleasantly unexplained by any confessional motivations, and happily free of moralizing. --Sean Axmaker