"The Good Son"

Spring has sprung. �Tis a glorious time of rebirth and refreshment, a time when the earth thaws and passion warms and flows downstream. When out in the woods and in the bars both sexes use wily methods to lure each other to perform the various rites of spring.

One of Hollywood�s cheapest tricks to lure us into the theaters is casting an actor into a role that runs against his or her established cinematic grain. Schwartzenegger in �Kindergarten Cop,� Steve Martin in �Pennies from Heaven,� Robin Williams in �Dead Poets� Society.� This shock (schlock?) value is usually able to tweak the collective interest of the movie-going public, translating into a short-term media buzz and long-term profits for the cats out there in California.

Enter �The Good Son,� the 20th Century Fox release starring the adorable pop phenom Macaulay Culkin. Messy-mopped, puffy-lipped Culkin plays a youngster with a homicidal mean streak that makes Jason Vorhees look like Wayne Gretsky. His insatiable bent for killing and destroying really blossoms, however, after his cousin (Elijah Wood) moves in with his family, which includes real-life sister Quinn. More unstable than a radioactive isotope, Macaulay proceeds to go on a rampage against all he perceives as a threat to his cushy, idyllic, in-the-pines-near-the-scenic-New-England-coast existence. This laundry list includes motorists, dogs, his cousin, his sister and even his mommy.

To cut right to it, Culkin can�t quite hack it as a pint-sized psycho. The novelty of seeing the cuddly star of �Home Alone� and �My Girl� act like a lunatic wears off after the first few scenes, largely because his acting is so wooden and the script so uninspired. I guess you can�t really blame him for this, though. After all, he�s only, what? Twelve? Blame the writer for the silly dialogue and contrived plot points, the director for allowing a preponderance of malarkey to slip through the final edits and the execs at Fox for green-lighting the project in the first place.

Yet, Fox�s bait has worked. People are going in droves (to the tune of $80 million) to see the lovable child star get down and dirty on the sliver screen -- fortunate for the producers because Culkin, a proven heavy hitter, commanded more than $6 million for his efforts. Still, I suppose it was almost worth the price of admission to hear the puritanical prepubescent bark, �Don�t f**k with me!�

Almost.

�The Good Son,� though a marginally original concept with a modicum of potential, is yet another notch on the barrel of the Tinsel Town gun that barrages viewers with silly, rehashed plots, melodramatic endings and promotional gimmicks. It would have been more honest and intriguing to do �Home Alone III: The Final Hurt,� with Culkin juicing up his already disturbed character into a full-fledged psychopath who really torments Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.

Alas, I fear we�re in for a lot more product similar to �The Good Son.� With skyrocketing production costs and stars� salaries becoming more and more, uh, stellar, the studios are forced to place greater emphasis on marketing and dividends, and less on art and quality. Sure, I�m cynical and hard to please -- and certainly there are exceptions. But, generally speaking, don�t we deserve more when we walk into the theater? I think so, and so should you.