{"id":9484,"date":"2010-07-02T13:01:51","date_gmt":"2010-07-02T21:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9484"},"modified":"2010-07-02T19:34:03","modified_gmt":"2010-07-03T03:34:03","slug":"the-wheeler-boys-philip-g-flores-2010-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9484","title":{"rendered":"The Wheeler Boys (Philip G. Flores, 2010): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Streamed on Netflix in conjunction with the Los Angeles Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"Philip G. Flores is the 2009 winner of the Netflix\/Film Independent\u00a0FIND Your Voice competition for first time filmmakers.\u00a0 The $350,000 valued prize consists of a cash\u00a0production grant, camera and film supplies, a digital package and guidance with script development.\u00a0 Flores’ winning entry The Wheeler Boys<\/a><\/em>, which he directed and co-wrote, was streamed for 48 hours for free on Netflix, concurrently with the film’s premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival.<\/p>\n

Truck and Ted Wheeler (Alex Frost and Lorenzo James Henrie) are brothers in high school.\u00a0 They live alone with their drunk and abusive father Ron (Bill Campbell)\u00a0who is confined to a wheelchair.\u00a0 Truck is about to graduate and marry is pregnant girlfriend Lizzie (Portia Doubleday), but loves hanging out with the boys and chasing girls.\u00a0 Ted (or Little Truck) is a bright student but admires his older brother so much, he’s willing to let his academics slide.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Kings are a popular high school fraternity whose initiation is to bed a freshman virgin, and then have a K symbol branded on the back shoulder of the initiate.\u00a0 Ted is a friend to many girls at school who admire his intelligence as well as his pleasant and easy going demeanor,\u00a0but his\u00a0priorities shift and his goal is to join the Kings alongside Truck.<\/p>\n

The Kings start a new contest to see who amongst them can bed down the most freshman virgins until the end of the school year and Truck actively participates in\u00a0the contest, while proclaiming his love for Lizzie.\u00a0 Since the Wheeler Boys are minus a mother figure, Lizzie is always\u00a0kind and pays special attention to the younger\u00a0Ted.\u00a0 As all\u00a0the boys eagerly compete against each other, Ted (previously in denial about Truck) begins to see his brother in a new light, and loathes his betrayal of Lizzie, which eventually pits the brothers against each other.<\/p>\n

A solid\u00a0story with good dialogue and strong acting, I found this film to be surprisingly entertaining.\u00a0 I would have\u00a0enjoyed seeing more of\u00a0Bill Campbell’s character, since I like this actor and haven’t seen much of him since 1991’s Rocketeer<\/em>, and it\u00a0might have\u00a0helped to progress\u00a0the\u00a0plot at a different level.\u00a0 There were technical problems streaming the film through Netflix on the first night, but 2 days later everything seemed to pan out and I was able to view it.\u00a0 Overall with the help of a\u00a0strong cast, Flores delivered solid work on his first time out as director\/co-writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Streamed on Netflix in conjunction with the Los Angeles Film Festival. Philip G. Flores is the 2009 winner of the Netflix\/Film Independent\u00a0FIND Your Voice competition for first time filmmakers.\u00a0 The $350,000 valued prize consists of a cash\u00a0production grant, camera and film supplies, a digital package and guidance with script development.\u00a0 Flores’ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,144,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-los-angeles-film-festival-2010","category-online-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}