The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

Has some interesting elements (especially the break to the vivid animated sequences), but a drifting narrative and uneasy mixture of tones and subject matter weighs it down; Hirsch is fine but can’t compete with the lightning charisma of Culkin, even as the best thread is arguably Hirsch and Malone’s burgeoning (and very sweetly rendered) romance. The film is further hampered by a tendency to load up on dark, often times bleak material which remains continually at odds with the lighter, coming-of-age material. Nice work from Foster as always, even through a not always convincing Irish accent.