Film Review – Jamesy Boy

Prison pictures, once the cornerstone of gritty cinema, don’t have it easy anymore. With the debut of HBO’s “Oz” in 1997, the standards of realism have been raised considerably, with any movie exploring the wearisome experience of incarceration required to have something of substance to support nearly two hours of screen time. “Jamesy Boy” offers the true story of James Burns, a juvenile delinquent whose mistakes cost him his formative years, but it’s not nearly enough of a journey to carry the feature, resorting to a non-linear structure to introduce surprise to a story that doesn’t contain any. Although it aims to dissect a trail of poor decisions and establish a horizon of self-awareness, “Jamesy Boy” lacks dramatic muscle and a credible lead performance. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com