uHollywood

We have all seen TV shows like Jerry Springer, Montel Williams, Ricky Lake, and Jeremy Kyle in which troublesome teens are packed off to boot camp in order to improve their behaviour. Human Trafficking director Christian Duguay takes an up close and relentless look at a fictionalised boot camp on a Fijian island.

Sophie (That 70′s Show’s Mila Kunis) is pretty much a good girl, yes she occasionally smokes the odd thing she should not, but she does not drink, do harm to others, or believe in sex before she is ready. What Sophie does have a problem with however is her stepfather Karl, a man who clearly now he has found himself a new wife wants Sophie out of the way. The problems are multiplied by the fact that Sophie’s Motherwants Sophie to call Karl dad. This is just too painful for Sophie still recovering from the sudden death of her father. At every opportunity Sophie tries to expose Karl for what he truly is, the result… Karl ships her off to A.S.A.P. a boot camp for kids. But this tough love camp hides some sinister goings on, and it’s a wonder if the parents knew the truth would they send their kids there? Sophie’s boyfriend Ben (Everwood’s Gregory Smith) having done some investigation is keen to free Sophie, and expose the truth about A.S.A.P. to the world.

You sit down and look at these boot camps, and often think they might be a good idea, and to some degree Duguay’s talerecommends this decision, showing promise behind an increasing number of boot camps across the world. But then he hits back hard with some incredibly hard facts, one of which is the fact that despite the fact that boot camps help thousands of families each year, since their first inception in 1979 forty boot camp inductees have died through accident or violence, a sobering statistic that all those do-gooder shows fail to illustrate.

Back to the story in question and I have to state I don’t really know how I feel about this movie. I love the philosophy behind it, I love the story, but something in the delivery really falls down. Could it be the fact that the leading lady is 10 years past the age of the character she plays, could it be the fact the story seems strangely hollow, or is it something else?

I won’t lie Mila Kunis does an admirable job in the leading role, as does co lead Gregory Smith, scripting helps because in this sort of motion picture one or the other would play a hard edged teenager that thinks they know it all, or can be tougher than any other.