TV REVIEW : ‘Gunplay’: Last Day in Boy’s Life on HBO

“Gunplay: The Last Day in the Life of Brian Darling,” an intense, half-hour drama premiering tonight at 8 on HBO, tells the true story of one of the hundreds of children who die each year in the United States due to accidental shootings.

The goal is to stimulate a dialogue about gun safety between parents and children, and the story is simply told so that children will understand. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to watch: Before it starts, Brian’s father, John Darling, warns that children shouldn’t see it alone. He’s right.

The film, written by Bruce Harmon and directed by Daniel Taplitz, is a series of ordinary events--four young boys playing, teasing, coming home late from the park, being scolded, eating dinner, watching TV, playing video games.

Parents are busy, distracted and impatient, but caring. Throughout, an unspoken point is made that it’s parental supervision, not love, that comes up short.

One boy, low man in his social hierarchy, is nervous about a recent neighborhood robbery and skittish about night noises. Even if the title didn’t give it away, you’d know something dreadful was in store.

Still, even though knowing what’s going to happen prematurely infuses the ordinary with vague menace, the inevitable violent death comes as a shock.

The program carefully avoids being an anti-gun polemic. Afterward, John Darling offers gun-safety tips for adults and children and tells parents, “Don’t let your kid disappear from your life the way Brian did from ours.”