The Good Son delivers its knuckle-gnawing set pieces with a skill that makes other thrillers look logy.
70
Time Out
Time Out
Young Mac is decisively upstaged by Wood, but the film's strongest selling point has to be a cliff-top finale in which the tyke's own mother has to choose whether he'll live or die. A summer camp classic.
67
Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle
An above-average “killer kid from hell” picture. Not The Bad Seed but not bad.
63
TV Guide Magazine
TV Guide Magazine
The Good Son is a second-rate thriller with first-rate production values. On a lower budget and without the hottest child star in America in the cast, Ruben and McEwan might have made a meaner, tougher and more successful thriller.
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
There's wonderful use made of a Maine port town, and Ruben gets a dizzying thrill or two out of overhead shots, but the conceptual overload finally prevents this from coming together.
The mere presence of the adorable baby star, in fact, seems to throw the whole film out of whack, making the picture play more like an inadvertent comedy than a thriller.
This thriller can't decide if it's a childrens thriller meant for adults or an adult thriller meant for kids, but ends up entertaining no-one.
12
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie is a creepy, unpleasant experience, made all the worse because it stars children too young to understand the horrible things we see them doing.