Son Trapped by Father’s Rage in Bleak ‘Little Boy Blue’

“Little Boy Blue” is a penny-dreadful time-waster that turns upon a Vietnam veteran (John Savage) having had his genitals blown away during combat. He has ever since remained in a state of permanent anger, often inebriated.

Savage’s Ray West lives with his worn-down but doggedly devoted wife, Kate (Nastassja Kinski), and three children, a 19-year-old (Ryan Phillippe) and two much younger boys in a ramshackle house in the Texas countryside. Kate runs a roadhouse in a nearby small town, where her husband lifts nary a finger to help her but hoists lots of drinks at the bar.

Ray holds his family in the thrall of constant fear of his rages. You may well be wondering who fathered the three boys, and that question allows writer Michael Boston to give his story a suspenseful framework. The problem with the film is not its material or even its mind-boggling twists and turns of plot but that Boston has failed to develop his characters sufficiently to allow us much sense of recognition in them; he’s also left too many loose threads.

There are countless families as luridly dysfunctional as the Wests prove to be, people with not enough knowledge or confidence to know how to seek help in the direst of circumstances. “Little Boy Blue” simply doesn’t give us enough reason to submit to witnessing such harrowing misery; it lacks illumination.

But not for the lack of effort on the part of clearly committed director Antonio Tibaldi or of Savage, who shows us Ray’s torment and even capacity for love, and Kinski, both distinctive actors with a certain mystique created by erratic, offbeat careers. Savage, however, seems to be in too good shape for such a self-destructive layabout, and Kinski too young to have been involved with him before he was wounded in Vietnam.

The focal point of the film is Phillippe’s Jimmy, who hesitates to take a way out when his rich girlfriend (Jenny Lewis) offers to pay for his college education--he also has the prospect of an athletic scholarship. He finds he just can’t stand the thought of not being home to protect the younger boys from Ray’s rages.

But if Jimmy is intelligent enough to go to college in the first place he would be intelligent enough to attempt at least to seek protection--especially when his best friend (Tyrin Turner) happens to be a cop. Jimmy can’t entertain the possibility that he might be in a better position to help the boys once away from home. The strongest survivor of this downer of a movie is Shirley Knight, vivid as a woman obsessed with her mission of vengeance.

* MPAA rating: R, for strong sexuality, violence and language. Times guidelines: The film depicts children in a profoundly negative and dangerous environment.

‘Little Boy Blue’

Ryan Phillippe: Jimmy West

Nastassja Kinski: Kate West

John Savage: Ray West

Shirley Knight: Doris Knight

A Castle Hill release of a Jazz Pictures presentation. Director Antonio Tibaldi. Producer Amedeo Ursini. Executive producer Virginia Giritlian. Screenplay by Michael Boston. Cinematographer Ron Hagen. Editors Tibaldi, Tobin Taylor. Costumes April Ferry. Music Stewart Copeland. Production designer John Frick. Set decorator Gabriella Villarreal. Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes.

* At selected theaters in Los Angeles and Orange counties.