May 5th, 2006
Don’t be fooled. Mike Russell says that the kids movie Hoot is a thoughtless endorsement of eco-terrorism:
Roy (Logan Lerman) transfers to a Florida middle school. For reasons explained far, far away from the script, he becomes obsessed with a barefoot kid named “Mullet Fingers” (Cody Linley). Soon, Roy is hanging out with Mullet and Mullet’s stepsister (Brie Larson) as they engage in cute little acts of eco-terror to keep a pancake house from being erected over the nest-holes of endangered burrowing owls.
We’re asked to root for these idiots as they pull up surveyor stakes, put a crocodile in an outhouse, spray-paint a patrol car, release cottonmouth snakes to scare off guard dogs, present false information during a hospital visit, flee the five-oh, vandalize bulldozers and assault the pancake-house CEO (Clark Gregg) — a man so cartoonishly nasty, he makes these schmucks look like the good guys.
And then, like three-fourths of the way through the film, it occurs to the kids to dig up an environmental report and call an on-site press conference that the entire town gleefully attends. Which is maybe something the kids should have tried before unleashing the poisonous snakes, don’cha think? . . .
And, worst of all, no one really learns anything. The film’s final scene finds Roy and Mullet looking at a sign announcing a condo construction site. Their eyes gleam wickedly. It’s meant to be funny — but I couldn’t help thinking they were figuring out where to plant the pipe bombs.
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