Detainment (2018) User Reviews

Humanzing Monsters

[gassydabber · 7/10 · 12 August 2019]

First off, these two child actors were phenomenal. I hope that-- if they are aware of the controversy around this movie-- none of it falls on them. I wish them the best of luck with their acting careers.

What to do with this movie? As with most true crime, there's always an ethical question lingering in the background of whether it was worth it to tell this story for an audience to consume it. This case was unique in that these two kids were tried as adults, and if you were to only ever see that on paper, you'd probably have a lot of questions, or you'd probably dismiss everyone involved as monsters.

And that's what feels like the question proposed to you, the audience; are these kids monsters and horrible people?

My answer is: yeah. I did not have much empathy for them. They both knew what they were doing in this tragedy, so they both need to pay the price. It's a story of those terrible fringe, edge cases where the parties involved fall right on the inner outlines of crime and punishment, and we get to examine what happens to people like them. What factors were involved, what their mentality was, what the crime was, etc..

While others touch on the point that little-to-no-attention was given to the victim or his family, to me it feels like the whole movie did: with the flashbacks in place and the alluding to how many people could've stepped in to do something about this, it feels like the victim's story was turned into a message of awareness: be aware if your kids are exhibiting this type of behavior, be aware if they are hanging out with others doing these types of things, be aware that this exists, because if you don't, we might lose another child.

I hope the worst is behind Denise. I hope these two boys seek help. And may James Bulger rest in peace.

A difficult but gripping drama

[gizmomogwai · 8/10 · 26 March 2019]

And so the push-back backfires again: Cries for Detainment's nomination to be pulled at the Oscars, not because of ineligibility, made me seek out the short. Classic Streisand effect. Detainment was bound to be controversial from the start. Based on transcripts from the interrogations from the murder of James Bulger, Detainment goes into a case that has caused extreme outrage that lasts to this day, with people adamant two 10-year-old boys should have been hanged for what they did. The crime was indeed horrific, and the allusions during the interrogation is part of what makes Detainment so challenging to take in, even if it's only 30 minutes long. Shorts can have an impact, and Detainment is one of them. But another thing that makes Detainment a challenging film is looking at the difficulties inherent in interrogating a child, particularly seeing an innocent parent having to sit through this and realize what their child has done. Ely Solan is a revelation as Jon.

The short really paints a picture of Jon and Robert. Even though they both pin the crime on each other, it becomes obvious Robert was the dominant and most sociopathic personality, given how stone-faced he is in his interview compared to Jon. Detainment doesn't diss James Bulger, doesn't whitewash what Jon and Robert did, but it is more interesting than the (oddly comforting) notion of dismissing the boys as monsters out of a fairy tale, confronting us with the horrors of reality.

30 minutes of great performances, narrating a more than disturbing story.

[DimitrisPassas-TapTheLine · 8/10 · 22 June 2019]

This is such a disturbing real story and the script lines are based on the actual taped interrogations and confessions of the two ten-year-old boys that murdered in a gruesome, inhuman way the little James Bulger, a two-year-old baby. The case shocked the whole globe when it happened in 1993 and the two boys became the youngest convicted murderers of the 21st century. If you are parents, especially with little kids avoid this short film at any cost. One should protect himself from the sheer volume of human depravity and wickedness. Unfortunately, there are stories that they take a lot more than a strong stomach to digest.

Nevertheless, if one wants to evaluate the film itself it is a great achievement as it is much difficult to direct two young kids to portray the two murderers in such a masterful and convincing manner. Leon Hughes and Ely Solan are two names that, I am certain, will hear more in the near future. The director is Vincent Lambe, who shoots exclusively short-length movies such as "Broken Things" and "After the War", but this one is definitely his magnum opus so far. "Detainment" made the Oscar shortlist for Best Live Action Short Film 2019. There is a controversy around this nomination as Lambe didn't ask for the permission of little James Bulger's parents, something that is considered a major unethical move from the film's producers team. If you are a fan of the true crime genre. you should watch "Detainment" keeping always in mind the remarks I made at the beginning of my review.

5-Star Review by VultureHound Magazine

[vulturehound · 8 January 2019]

There are some events in history that creative minds very rarely go near. This is particularly true of murders so shocking and horrifying that most empathetic folk react only with the rawest of emotions. The Moors Murders committed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley and the serial murders of Fred & Rose West have both been dramatised for crime tv shows such as Deadly Women and Crimes That Shook Britain but very rarely adapted to film. Whether it's out of respect for the victims' families, an inability to create something meaningful or some other reason there are some crimes that are left untouched by film. One such murder case that up until now remained away from the big screen is the murder of Jamie Bulger, a toddler who was brutally murdered by two 10 year old boys Robert Thompson & Jon Venebles after they snatched him from a butcher's shop. The case caused a massive debate over the treatment of youth offenders who commit serious crimes and sickened Britain. Making a film about this topic 25 years on runs the risk of being divisive at best and in supreme bad taste at worst. Detainment manages to avoid both.

Detainment is a film that is based solely on the transcripts and Police interviews conducted with Venebles and Thompson. It's a 30 minute short film that not only shows the boys in interview but glimpses of their accounts dramatised for us to see the lead up to the murder. The team behind Detainment do a superb job of casting everyone involved in the interviews especially Thompson (played by Leon Hughes) and Venebles (played by Ely Solan.) Every performance is painfully precise in portraying every character as authentically as possible. There are no over dramatised evil moments from either murderer: like with the real interviews themselves, the behaviour of each boy speaks volumes on their own. Detainment shows the bare facts of the case without hyperbole. The interview rooms are bare and lit in the most basic of ways with no stand out colours to distract from the narrative at hand. It shows as much as it legally can without being a gratuitous gore fest.

The film achieves everything it sets out to: it's effective, it tells the story very well and it's structure is solid from beginning to end. In every respect it is a brilliant short film. Regardless of that, it is a very difficult watch and one of the hardest films to review personally. It's been a quarter of a decade and the mere mention of the case can still instigate very emotionally driven reactions. I was only 5 months older than Bulger when he died and it was a case that caused my Mother - like many parents of that day - to be ever more vigilant with myself & my siblings. Detainment is a confronting movie by the very nature of its subject matter which makes it incredibly difficult to recommend to anyone to watch.

Showing that psychologically challenging topics can be shown on screen without being tasteless and the need for embellishment, Detainment is a well constructed but difficult watch.

Okay reenactment

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 13 March 2019]

"Detainment" is a British/Irish co-production released in 2018, so relatively new still and this one runs for a bit over half an hour. The writer and director is Vincent Lambe and while he has been making films for 20 years already, he certainly is not the most prolific filmmaker. According to imdb, this is just his 4th work as director and all of these are short films. I will not go into detail a whole lot about the cast here, no famous names, but they aren't needed either. All the actors did a fine job and be it only sitting there on the chair next to one's son in the most apathic manner. So lets go into detail about the plot here. This little movie is about the James Bulger murder case. A very young boy gets killed by two older boys and we see reenactments from start to finish, including the boys being out there in the streets with James as well as the interrogations after the murder. I liked the way the element of coincidence was used here. Had the old lady not had a dog that cannot deal with children, the younger lady could have gone with James to the police and not let him with the two boys. I guess it really happened this way, but you can see how luck (or bad luck) during the right (or wrong) situation could have changed it all. I hope she is not thinking of that moment anymore, the real lady with the child, it wasn't one bit her fault of course. Moving on to the interrogations, I read they were based on scripts and that certainly makes them more interesting knowing everything (or almost everything) happened dialogue-wise the way it is shown here. I must say I found it a bit too much black and white though. The one emotionally distant boy being displayed as the bad guy until he commits and is no longer willing to take all the blame, while the other clearly poses as a victim there or lets say as the one who contributed almost nothing to killing Bulger. This is obviously not what happened and how it happened, he just wants to move himself into a much better position. But there are moments when it is obvious he is in it as much as the other, for example that there is a lot of violence in him when he keeps punching his father when things are not going his way. Overall, an interesting watch. I don't mind the nomination at the Oscars, even if I would probably not include in my top five favorite short films of 2018. But the reenactmenst were done with nice attention to detail, the exact opposite of another Oscar-nominated film this year, Black Sheep, where the reenactments looked cheap and felt very wrong and lacked all artistic significance. Detainment gets a thumbs-up from me. Go see it if you can deal with the hevay material. Lets hope the success means that Lambe will make more films and also more often in the future.

Amazing boy actors

[elenipnyc · 10/10 · 12 April 2019]

I felt guilty watching this as I know that Denise Bulger, the mother of the murdered toddler, was so upset at its being released. This short film was excellently done and, if anything, brings James's story back up to people. May his memory be eternal.

The young actors did phenomenal jobs. If you want an example of an excellent child actor, watch this. I cannot wait to see them in feature-length films in the future.

Missing 4 Tapes

[ham-ma242 · 7/10 · 5 September 2022]

This is a hardcore short movie of a horrific event. Though I wish they would have added the 4 tapes that were "too extreme to release", just to know the full story. But you should get the idea of what these boys did.

This serves as a good character study too, as how kids act in the heat of the moment and are easily gullible and fall under pressure to do terrible things that they have no understanding of. At least in this movie it's clearly shown that one kid wanted to do it all the way because of his family background and the other wanted the opposite but was peer pressured into doing it.

Giving it a 7/10 because it's incomplete without those 4 tapes.

Wow. This is perfectly made.

[PaulCDerby · 10/10 · 2 March 2019]

I wasn't sure whether to watch this or not, I guess I was curious to see it after all the media reports about it, and of course it being nominated for an Oscar.

The acting is superb, especially by the two boys and the parents. I guess the film made me realise what the parents of the boys must have felt when realising the evil things their own child had done, that was hard to watch.

Do I think the film should ever have been made, I am honestly not sure, but films are quite often made without the consent of all involved.

What those two did, is the most evilest thing I have ever seen in my life, it disturbs me that they are now free.

I have never felt so sorry towards anyone as i do to James's parents.

RIP James

Not Bad

[kateziegler-36700 · 7/10 · 15 February 2019]

I'm not sure this is Oscar nomination/win worthy but it was a good short. The acting is pretty good. The writing is not the best and I've seen better movies based on real life events. It does seem to put the two murderer boys in too good of a light, not sure why they thought this was necessary.

The Bad Seed

[Screen_O_Genic · 9/10 · 22 July 2019]

Chilling and disturbing short film on the murder of James Bulger. Based on actual interviews the film depicts the narration of the 10 year old murderers as they were interrogated by the police. The lies, confusion and tragedy are grippingly portrayed as the child psychopaths are eventually brought to justice. Good directing and stellar acting especially by the young actors portraying the killers make this one of the standout shorts. The only flaw of the movie is the horrid details of the crime are not fully touched on leaving the film wanting and hanging as to the gravity of the crime and what makes it one of the most horrendous in history. Dark and unforgettable, "Detainment" is a glimpse of evil on earth and the all too painful reality of it.

Ridiculously Depressing

[DarkSpotOn · 7/10 · 5 December 2023]

Before i start this review, i have to state that i have seen Boy A, a movie that's briefly based on this case. Camera work is incredible, the acting is incredible. It made me feel anxious, depressed, that does not happen often with movies. I have only one negative and that's they keep shifting from interviews to what happened. I think it would of been more powerful if we have a first lenght of the event, and then jump into the interviews. But then again, that wouldn't make sense cuz then we'd see everything what occured, meaning them blaming each other wouldn't be as impactful.

It's just really depressing seeing young people 19 and under do such disgusting acts. It makes it much more depressing knowing that somebody this young would commit such disgusting act. I kinda wish we had a bit more of a plot, not just the interview footage. If it was made a into a full lenght movie with a plot, like Grave of the Fireflies, it would probably rip me apart. Never the less, still pretty good.

Spine-chilling

[lauranbvc · 9/10 · 18 May 2019]

First review on imdb. I watched the director on Irish prime time discussing the controversy that arise after the oscar nomination, and I was apprehensive to watch after the backlash that ensued. I have read both parents autobiography and although I think it's impossibe to feel the entirety of their pain, however you get a sense of just how disturbing/traumatizing those weeks after must have been. This short portrays that nauseating feeling very well. This film simply documents the words that came from boys mouths, nothing else. It does not exploit the situation for any entertainment. There is no nature vs nurture debate. Unbiased and real. 9/10

The most horrible and unnecessary movie ever made.

[alberto-928-249754 · 1/10 · 17 February 2019]

This movie exploits a horrible crime without any altruistic purpose. I have no idea why the filmmakers decided to tell the story of this crime and -on top of that- neglect the family of the victim. I very much regret having to sit through this film.

real world horror

[ferguson-6 · 9/10 · 7 November 2018]

Greetings again from the darkness. Evil personified. That is the only possible way to describe 10 year old boys Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. In February 1993, the British boys skipped school and spent the day doing typically mischievous activities around the local shopping center. Typical that is until they abducted 2 year old James Bulger.

This is writer-director Vincent Lambe's 4th short film, and it's based on the disturbingly true story of the abduction-torture-murder of toddler James by the two young boys. The film draws directly from the actual tapes of interviews/interrogations once the boys were identified from the grainy security footage. This dramatization includes the pleas of innocence from the boys, as well as the reactions of both their parents and the police officers. The scenes depicting the questioning of the boys is powerful, and the scenes of the 3 boys together is more than most of us can bear, despite little of the crime being shown (thankfully).

Young actors Ely Solan (Jon) and Leon Hughes (Robert) are both extraordinary in their performances. Director Lambe deftly applies judgment in what is shown on screen and what instead corrupts our thoughts. It's heart-breaking to see what the parents of these boys must endure, but it's beyond our comprehension to imagine what Baby James Bulger's parents must have endured. The boys were tried as adults in 1993, and both subsequently released from incarceration and given assumed identities for their own protection. If somehow Lambe's short film isn't disturbing enough, it's pretty simple to get the full report of what the boys inflicted on that poor child. Evil personified.

Deeply uncomfortable, but undeniably powerful and well made

[wellthatswhatithinkanyway · 9/10 · 22 May 2019]

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

In February 1993, the body of two year old James Bulger was found on a railway line in Walton, Merseyside. Shortly after, two ten year old boys Robert Thompson (Leon Hughes) and Jon Venables (Ely Solan) were arrested and taken for questioning. This film is a re-enactment of the actual police interview, taken directly from transcripts. Whilst Thompson cracks under the pressure, Venables maintains a steely, hardened persona.

Last year marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the murder of James Bulger by two ten year old boys, a crime that still strikes a massive blow on the cultural consciousness whenever it is resurrected on TV or in the media. And so this controversial Northern Ireland short production was produced, not apparently to cream off any publicity from the milestone. A further uncomfortable truth is the condemnation from the mother of the murdered boy, who has voiced her disapproval of the production (and was apparently not consulted!)

In thirty short minutes, director Vincent Lambe has to cram as much affecting material as he can into his production. And so, while we open with deceptively easy going shots of the boys larking about in the shopping centre, we are quickly plunged into the uncomfortable central setup of the interview room, where it all comes out. Hughes, as Thompson, is particularly upsetting, as the child assaulted with the full gravity of what he's done, reacting with an emotional wildness that is very unsettling. Equally so is the flashback sequences of the boys leading James to his doom, where just the image of the innocent little boy and his gradual breakdown is enough to churn your gut.

It's hard to think of many other cases where something so short leaves such a devastating impression, but this is definitely one case. In the throes of their performances, the child actors sometimes lapse back into their Northern Irish accents, losing their Liverpudlian dialect, but in being so integral to something so powerful and emotionally devastating, this is a very minor flaw that can be forgiven. Not an easy watch, or even something you'd want to see again, but still undeniably shattering. ****

Excellent

[milmi-04376 · 10/10 · 24 October 2019]

A very emotional and intelligent short. Very good actors. Top direction and gripping music.

An important short film and raw as hell.

[foxhound-37781 · 10/10 · 4 April 2019]

A very powerful and deeply moving short film about the two boys who brutally murdered James Bulger in 1993. I'd been wanting to see this for myself since I head about it and I was lucky enough to find a youtuber who somehow managed to get this uploaded so I watched it straight away in fear of it being taken down off his channel if I delayed.

The film mostly jumps between police stations of the two boys being interviewed with The events that took place intermingled between them, leaving the strand with James up to nearly the point where they tortured and murdered him.

The clear distinction between the two boys is honest and very clear. Jon is scared and very emotional often breaking down in mad crying fits, Robert is tough and defensive and backchats the detectives at every possible moment. each of the two kids try to pin the majority of the blame on the other and seemingly becomes one giant mind game for the detectives involved.

Ely and Leon are absolutely terrific as Jon and Robert and the direction and overall ambiance of this film is astounding for a short film. Detainment is copping an astronomical amount of backlash as is the director but It's not a film that wants to humanize the two boys, it simply wants to shed some more light and ask more questions to get a better understanding of why they did what they did.

I'll be honest when I say Detainment will not be everyone's' cup of tea and there's a lot of people who will be giving this movie 1 out of 10 purely based on the subject matter but for me personally, I can see the importance in a film like this. It shows just how easily someones life can become undone and the rippling effect that shows how a single murder can have a strong lasting effect on so many people. James Bulger wasn't the only boy who lost his life. Two other boys lives also ended that day.

Vincent Lambe did an incredible job considering such a heavy subject matter is at hand here. A very powerful film considering it's short running time.

Review by David James Smith (author, 'The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case)

[film-review · 9 January 2019]

I thought Detainment was a remarkable achievement, a compelling and disturbing evocation of those events, which I know all too well and remain deeply troubling even after 25 years.

The film was authentic and brilliantly cast especially the two boys who perpetrated the killing of James Bulger. While I could imagine some would recoil from the idea of dramatising such a terrible crime, I thought the film was both unflinching and also sensitive to the ongoing trauma.

If audiences are willing, they will find in the film the truth of the two boys and their inescapable smallness - they were just ten, after all - which only serves to make the incident as unfathomable now as it was in 1993.

As Detainment I think seeks to explore, even though the killing is painfully difficult to comprehend we have a responsibility, not only to the victim and the perpetrators but also to ourselves, to try and make sense of what happened. In that way the film avoids prurience and shows us two boys of primary school age who are not the evil monsters of popular imagination but only human after all.

I hope the film finds the wider audience it very much deserves.

-- David James Smith (author, 'The Sleep of Reason: The James Bulger Case')

What is even the point of this?

[Avwillfan89 · 5/10 · 12 October 2020]

First off, the family of James Bulger were not contacted or consulted in any way shape or form for this movie and have voiced their disapproval of it being nominated for an Oscar, saying it was glorifying her son's killers.

As a film, it doesn't present or examine anything new under the sun. They are simply the transcripts from the numerous police interviews being acted out by the actors involved. The boys who played Thompson and Venables are extraordinarily good, but I fear that this particularly controversial subject will harm them in the future - I really hope it won't be the case.

Over twenty five years later, the case still chills people to their core. The very idea that two kids as young as ten years old could inflict the most vile horrific abuse on a toddler is absolutely horrifying - on an unprecedented level.

Despite Bulger's killers being only ten years old - they truly were pure evil, knew what they were doing and would do it again if they could. This film attempts to humanise at least one of Bulger's killers (Venables) and sort of demonise the other (Thompson).

There have been better documentaries out there about this - and the fact that it's so short kind of tells you everything you need to know.

A remarkable piece of cinema

[supercool-cinema · 10/10 · 23 April 2019]

As if in a dream, Detainment (Vincent Lambe) opens with two ten-year old boys set loose in a sleepy shopping centre. The camera glides, the boys run and tumble in slow motion, and, in a moment of subtle foreshadowing, toys are stolen and destroyed. As if in a dream, an air of impending dread pervades all.

This is intercut with the two boys being taken in custody, their finger-prints and photographs are taken and cassettes are loaded into tape recorders for the interviews.

Delivering an emotional gut-punch that I can still feel, the opening sequence concludes with the boys stopping, exchanging conspiratorial glances and then staring at a toddler, standing horribly alone.

And at last it hits me. I feel the ground fall away as my mind floods and stalls with memories of the nationwide trauma inflicted a quarter of a century ago. Old wounds tear open and I fight the urge to burst into tears.

I literally had no idea Detainment was about the James Bulger case, the controversy that currently surrounds the film was yet to break.

It was April 2018 and, as a member of the Winchester Film Festival screening panel (the folks who spend their spare time watching all of the festival's submissions), it caught me several hundred films into that year's competition. None of the last dozen or so had rocked me and I was beginning to wonder if my luck had dried up. Oh well, push on to the next one.

Following the opening credits, we embark upon the interviews that provide the film with its structure. The initial bravado of the two suspects, Jon Venables (Ely Solan) and Robert Thompson (Leon Hughes), falters in the face of calm but focused questioning and their excuses quickly come apart, leaving them blaming each other for the abduction, torture and murder of two-year old James Bulger (Caleb Mason). The intensity of these scenes underlines what remarkable source material the cast are working from, the tapes of the actual interviews, as well as the astonishing performances from Solan and Hughes as well as their parents and the detectives that comprise the rest of the cast (Killian Sheridan is particularly good as Jon Venables' father).

Detainment is in many ways a beautiful piece of filmmaking, far greater than the sum of its controversy and outstanding performances. It addresses its topic soberly and with a meditative air of detachment but it is still a profoundly upsetting experience. We are never shown any violence being committed against James but the numerous shots of him being led by Jon and Robert across a park, through the streets of Bootle and onto the railway tracks are incredibly hard to watch, especially on the numerous occasions passers-by almost intervene.

Unlike other dramas about child abduction, we don't at any point cut away to James's grieving parents. The film after all is a dramatisation of the police interviews so this is understandable, and yet in their absence I found myself searching for a character to pin my sympathy upon. At first I tried the parents of the killers but as the sheer horror of what their children did becomes clear, they seem to slip into catatonic states of shock, disgust and guilt. Then I looked to the killers themselves.

As their alibis crumble, Venables breaks down in tears and look small, lost and alone. We can't hide from the fact that these two killers, branded 'evil' by the media and later tried and convicted as adults, are primary school children barely able to comprehend what they have done. Tellingly, when Thompson is told that James's remains are being held at a hospital, he asks if they are going to make him better. As the interviews progress though the abhorrent nature of their crimes against James are revealed, making any sympathy impossible. In perhaps the film's most chilling moment, a title card states that the information gained from a final interview has never been made public and was deemed too distressing to be played in court. The mind positively reels.

My search for a sympathetic character ended without success and perhaps this is the point. Everyone in this tale carries a degree of guilt for a crime which twenty-six years later we are still no closer to understanding. In a brave attempt to approach it from a different angle, Detainment poses uncomfortable questions of its viewers, questions which offer no easy answers.

I was left with mixed feelings from this first viewing. The abiding emotion of the film is loss; of life, innocence and reason, leaving an unquenchable emptiness at the heart of three families, a community and a county. It is deeply affecting stuff. And yet witnessing such a remarkable piece of cinema was undoubtedly thrilling. I hurriedly contacted other members of the screening panel and we all agreed that this was the one, a film that had to be seen, a film that Winchester Film Festival had to screen.

A rare find

[stefdehoog · 9/10 · 8 January 2019]

Brilliant acting and directing. A delicate portrait of how twisted humans can be. Very impressive and rare short film that will stick on you.

I don't think it humanizes the murderers, though it did seem tacky not to talk to the victim's family first.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 17 February 2019]

Today I went to the annual showing of the Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts. I've gone to these showings for at least a decade and must admit that this year's batch was the most god-awful films....all of them very depressing and a few so depressing that I left the theater wanting to shoot myself!! Clearly, "Detainment" was among the most depressing to watch....especially since it's a recreation of a horrible and very brutal murder of a 2 year-old...by two 10 year-olds!!

Before I get to my review, I can't avoid talking about the controversy surrounding this particular film. The filmmakers never sought to warn the parents of the dead child that they were making the film nor did they attempt to get their consent. Not surprisingly, the dead toddler's mother was angry and tried to get the picture removed from Oscar contention. Part of this, reportedly, is because the film supposedly humanized the murderers...though after seeing it, I don't believe it did. One was clearly portrayed as a soulless monster...the other, while more sympathetic was still shows as a horrible little thing as well.

The story begins with Jon and Robert running amok in a mall...stealing and breaking and annoying everyone. When they come upon an unaccompanied toddler, they impulsively kidnap the boy and then extremely brutally (and probably sexually) murder him for kicks. Most of the film consists of the children being interviewed by police as they pieced the story together. Fortunately, the film did NOT show the murder or the small child being harmed in any way..though they do have the actors playing the murderers describe some of what they'd done....and it was ROUGH to listen to. I found myself in tears several times...and even now tear up as I write about it.

The acting is terrific---esepcially by the kids and director who was able to elicit such emotive performances out of them. While I would say that this was the best made film this year, it is very rough to watch. I strongly recommend you think twice about seeing it..especially if you've been a victim of abuse or if you have lost a loved one due to violence.

Ignore The Haters

[dickyroe · 9/10 · 24 January 2019]

This is an important work that has nuance. Too many want to signal their virtue by saying that ten year old boys can be inherently evil and so no further examination of their story is needed. Imagine the creative works that would never have been made had relatives had a veto about what would get the go-ahead.

Watch it

[gooniegoggles · 7 January 2019]

Don't listen to people who say boycott this movie, it's only 30 mins long and it doesn't show anything distasteful. The parents weren't informed about it being made but there's plenty of movies where the victims of the true events weren't asked for permission before they're tragedies were depicted into feature length movies. As sad as it is, it happened 25 years ago, 9/11 had a film made about it just a few years later and there's more examples of you research them

Sorry but this was a miserable viewing experience

[Quinoa1984 · 4/10 · 18 February 2019]

At the movie theater I go to (the Clearview Bow Tie in Montclair, NJ), there's a wall where people can write short reviews and post them. I wrote for the Oscar nominated live action short films overall: "Holy cow, these shorts were a barrel of laughs!"- (signed Lars von Trier, probably). I think a lot of that feeling comes in particular from this short, which is basically 20 minutes of misery porn in the guise of an "important" look at a stomach churning true story from 25 years or so ago when two ten year olds killed (and is more than strongly suggested raped) a toddler in Northern England.

I think that the controversy regarding how it was put together is one thing; I didn't know about this until reading some reviews on here, and it is ghoulish and unseemly of the director to make this without informing the *dead baby's mother*. The actual quality of the thing is another, and that's where I have an even greater issue. The director has less than zero sense of a) making it a unique artistic statement (a film like Son of Saul, for example, is a traumatic cinematic experience, but it's because of how it's shot and presented that the artistry transcends the horror of the real life story), and b) avoiding melodrama.

Detainment should have been, at best, one of those documentary TV shows where the dramatization happens in little parts between the interviews with the real-life subjects. The way it's shot is screaming at you with the mis-en-scene, close-ups and "realistic" hand-held of the day-of with the kids and the baby, plus overbearing music, and while there is something on an intellectual level that can be striking (who is a true sociopath/psychopath and who is just misguided and stupid as a kid can be seen between these two killers), emotionally it's a thousand grim sledghammers banging away at the same time.

Sad story? Sure. Should it have been made into a motion picture done up with lots of good quality equipment and professional acting? I dunno. But it's not an experience I ever want to revisit for the rest of my days.