Straight A's (2013)

Fantastic!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Family black sheep Scott (Ryan Phillippe) comes home on a horse. His brother William (Luke Wilson) is away on business. His sister in-law Katherine (Anna Paquin) was his high school sweetheart. William and Katherine have two kids, but their marriage is a shell. Scott's father (Powers Boothe) is suffering from dementia.There is a little heat coming from Phillippe and Paquin. It's too bad that Wilson is away from home for most of the movie. The small amount of heat is never nurtured to bring on any fire. This movie moves at a snail's pace. Obviously the little boy has problems. Scott is completely inappropriate. It had promise, but no follow through.

Maybe I was expecting too much, but "Straight A's" is a low budget film with several problems. The plot is OK, but technically this film is quite amateurish. The acting is not top notch either, and Ryan Philippe's worst film so far. Besides that this is a film filled with really disgusting men, which all sweets up in the end.I immediately reacted to the bad opening family film-music, the childish writing and then the staged opening with the cowboy riding in from the sun in slow motion. Then the meeting with the strange kids rather bad monologue when he is talking in a narrative setting. Then I reacted equally negative to the voices which seemed so artificial that I thought it was put on after-wards, after being read in a studio. Then I thought th cutting was amateurish. What a bad start! After 10 minutes I reacted negatively to the music, and then the supposedly cute kids, which are acting forced.But some way along the little boy Charles is really starting to charm up. He's really doing his best, showing some talent when the film has passed the hour.The plot is not bad, but everything in it is quite badly executed. Director James Cox is not up to it, and the writing by David Cle is also under average. You won't be sorry if you leave this on the shelf, or stop watching after the first minutes.

I watched this movie with a grain of salt, due to all the negative reviews here on IMDb. I was expecting nothing and just killin' some time.I had to come back to the reviews here to double check that the negative reviews were actually for this movie.This was an excellent movie. The story is superb, like a really good short story I didn't notice the time and it was over before I realized it.I don't know if people were expecting something like True Blood or maybe reacting to some of the character's behaviors they didn't like or what. But let me tell you what, this is one well made, well acted and well directed movie. The filming and "artful" effects are done in just enough of a way that really tied it together as well.I was genuinely surprised that I had not heard of this movie before. I just came across it on Netflix at random.My conclusion is: it is a very interesting story that I found to be far more real and interesting than the last 30 big Hollywood movies I have seen... Maybe more.

I am always interested in why a movie is named the way it is, and this one comes from a simple line half-way through. The young boy is fretting over an extemporaneous talk he has to give at school, because he has straight A's and doesn't want to break that string. His reprobate uncle looks at him and says "Straight A's aren't everything in life."That reprobate uncle is Ryan Phillippe as Scott in a quite different role for him. He plays the younger brother that had left their home in Dallas some years earlier, no one knew where he was, and his older brother had married Scott's high school sweetheart and they now had a boy and a girl. Now, on Tuesday he comes riding up on a horse. As he explains his drivers license was revoked and riding a horse was a way to get around. He had come all the way from Memphis.The former high school sweetheart and now sister-in-law is Anna Paquin as Katherine . She is living the non-working Dallas (actually filmed in Bossier City, Louisiana) socialite life and is surprised when Scott shows up while her husband is out of town on business for the week.The husband, and brother of Scott, is Texan Luke Wilson as William . He has his own troubles, in the casino bar after a day on the job he confides to a friend that he is planning to get home and split up with Katherine. It just seems that the excitement has gone out of their marriage.The young son is Riley Thomas Stewart as Charles and the young daughter is Ursula Parker as Gracie . Young Ursula is a "natural", she was so good in her role, but I also found out she is an accomplished violinist at her young age. A quick youtube search on "Ursula parker violin" will generate a number of results, and worth the effort if you want to see how good she is. Really good! Anyway the story spans a week, from Tuesday to Monday of the next week. Lots of things come out, lots of things happen, and some healing is accomplished. I wouldn't consider this a great movie, but a pretty good one. I was impressed that Phillippe handled such a different role quite well and believably. In fact all the actors were fine. Including Powers Boothe as the old dad who seemed to be losing his mind gradually.SPOILERS: There is a telling scene where "Uncle" Scott is attending Charles's presentation and at the end he stands up, claps, and shouts "That's my boy." Katherine's reading of the deceased boys' mom clarified things. As it turns out Scott really was the father, the boy was born 9 months after Katherine last saw Scott before he disappeared, and then she began seeing William. She was pregnant when they got married, but neither of them considered it a "shotgun wedding" because they really were in love. Now they find Scott has been secretly suffering with a brain tumor, after he made reconciliation with his dad and brother, he died and the married couple reassured each other of their love.