If you frittered away your childhood on dreams of aiding Indiana Jones or becoming Jamie Summers then the endlessly inventive, gorgeously giddy Son Of Rambow is the movie for you. Set during a balmy English summer back in the early eighties, the film prioritises youthful fantasies and hilarious high jinx through its two fantastic 13 year-old leads. Will (Milner) is the quiet religious one who is still mourning the recent loss of his father. A member of the Plymouth Brethren, one of our country’s most preposterous exports, Will has never watched television nor heard a story that doesn’t come from the Bible. This cultural ignorance, however, has done little to stifle his imagination. His doodles and daydreams about dragons and airplanes (with feet!) are one of the most endearing aspects of a preposterously charming film.
Will’s first brush with the tenth and liveliest muse comes when Lee Carter (Milner), his infinitely naughtier school chum, leaves him alone with a pirated copy of Rambo. As you might suppose it’s enough to blow the little chap’s mind. Inspired, he immediately dreams up a universe where he is Sylvester Stallone’s son seeking to rescue dear old dad from a flying dog and a marauding band of bucket headed scarecrows. Lee, an avid film buff, decides to incorporate all these fancies into his very own version of First Blood. His intention is to triumph on Screen Test, a BBC forum for the budding auteur and he doesn’t mind shooting objects off his new friend’s head to get there. Playing Trautman to Will’s John Rambo, Lee authors a rip roaring production sees that the pair shooting each other out of traps that Wile E. Coyote might think better of. Then the Bigger Boys move in.
This warm, sui generis feel good frolic comes to us courtesy of Hammer & Tongs whose eccentric creations include the dancing robots for Beck’s ’Hell Yes’ and 2005’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. That duo’s flair for both the sublime and the ridiculous has not seemed so perfectly pitched since that brave little milk carton set off down the street in their video for Blur’s ‘Coffee & TV’. You’d be hard pressed to find fault with anything here. The story is touching and funny. The animations are delightfully squiggly. The comedy is knockabout.
Whoever thought that Rambo could inspire such mirth? Oh, wait...