Mean Creek

By Philippa Hawker
October 4, 2005

A group of schoolchildren conspire to exact revenge on the local bully.

Mean Creek
Run Time
OFLC Rating
MA 15+
United States
Jacob Aaron Estes
Screen Writer
Jacob Aaron Estes
A film made with good intentions on the subject of bad behaviour, Mean Creek is an exploration of revenge and responsibility, misplaced loyalty and devastating consequences.

Rory Culkin plays Sam, a small, anxious-looking teenager who, at the beginning of the film, is set upon by his aggressive classmate George (Josh Peck). It's not the first time that that George has made life difficult for other kids, and Sam's older brother, Rocky (Trevor Morgan) decides to teach him a lesson, with the help of a couple of friends. Sam, although he's attracted to the idea of retribution, doesn't want to hurt his tormentor: he agrees to a plan that will involve deception and humiliation.

So George is invited on an outing. Sam, George, Rocky, plus Rocky's friends Marty and Clyde (Scott Mechlowicz and Ryan Kelley), embark on a river trip that is meant to end with the punishment of the bully. Along for the ride, but unaware of the plan, comes Millie (Carly Shroeder), Sam's blonde classmate.

Things do not, of course, go as intended. To begin with, Sam is unsettled by George's obvious pleasure at the invitation, and starts to have second thoughts. It's a clear, bright day - the camera diverts to highlight the delights of the natural world, to show us deer scrambling into the river, the play of sunlight on water - and it seems, for a while, that this mismatched group might be able to pass the time together peacefully. But a plan has been set in motion, a game of Truth or Dare has unfortunate consequences and Sam discovers that changing his mind isn't as easy as he hoped.

Writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes, in his feature debut, is at pains to give his characters some extra dimensions - to show that the aggressive Marty, for example, is picked on by a vindictive older brother, or that George has some redeeming features and complexity.

Estes creates a sense of the uneasy interplay between the boys, of moments of needling and swagger, and the ability of some characters to fix unerringly on vulnerabilities and emotional flashpoints.

On the surface, Mean Creek invites comparison with films such as Larry Clark's Bully and Tim Hunter's River's Edge, movies that explore teenage alienation and affectless behaviour. But Mean Creek is a more conventional, even-handed work than these movies, with more transparently earnest intentions on its audience.

It is deftly directed and its cast is uniformly good, but it feels a little too much as if it has been devised with instruction in mind. The most interesting element is the character of George, a plausible mixture of bravado, unpleasantness, perceptiveness and pathos, a character whose activities frame the film, yet somehow escapes its confines.
