This was a surprisingly good film, actually. The basic premise follows a young lad – Stanley – who is found guilty of theft, and is sent off to “Camp Greenlake” to dig holes in order to “build his character”.
An interesting back-story of him and his family emerges, and we follow his trials and tribulations on this correctional facility with its oddball warden and guards. Of course all is not what it seems at Camp Greenlake, and as the story emerges the true reason for the digging comes out – and could the c4-generational urse on Stanley’s family finally be broken?
Squarely aimed at its 12 rating audience, this film never the less covers issues of love, justice, bullying, honour, truth, respect, and loyalty. Wow – that makes it sound heavy.. perhaps it would help to point out that “Mean Girls” covers similar ground?
The only downside, as with the film mentioned above, is that the adults are all very wooden, and there as caricature; it’s the children who have real personalities. Nevertheless it is an engaging film, who’s storyline is never entirely predictable. It is also fairly amusing.