http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0926380/

I have always liked Clive Owen. Ever since his early days in the TV show Chancer. He has a great charm in his roles whether he is a caring father, or a badass like in Shoot em up. Here he plays a sports writer Joe. He has a comfortable life with his wife Katie. They live together in Australia with their son Artie. She cleans up after him and pretty much keeps the balance in the house. If it wasn't for her the house would fall apart like a dusty turd in an unused bathroom toilet. He never really had to do much with his son Artie, so when Katie suddenly dies he tries to do everything. This doesn't seem to include cleaning up after him or his son. Their house eventually has junk build up to a point where they just stop thinking about it. Joe takes Artie on a road trip, not because the boy wants to but because Joe can't handle his wife's death. He needs to get away, and his son just happens to be there. After a while the driving trip seems to be getting to little Artie, who didn't seem to react when his mum died. His reaction when she died was to tell his aunt that he told her that his mum would be dead before the morning. The road trip finally gets to Artie and he freaks out, and starts kicking the back seat. Joe just thinks he is hungry and asks him if he wants some chips. Which is a very typical responce to any kind of emotional problem for the Brits it seems. I don't want to generalize, but every time I visit my family there it seems everyone's reaction to a problem is to offer tea. Not that I mind though since I love tea. Anyway back to the story, Joe takes Artie back home to their house and for a while we observe how they live. Their lives are wild, they have water balloon fights in doors, and cause chaos pretty much all the time. Joe feels bad about Katie dieing so he tries to distract Artie in this way. He gets a call from his ex wife who he left when he knocked up Katie. She wants him to spend time with his son he hasn't seen in a while.

The boy Harry comes over and at first he is confused by the chaos and lack of order in the house but he soon gets used to it. Joe hasn't been to work for a while, but when he returns he finds out he has to write sports articles which will require him to take trips to cover tennis matches.He lies and says he there while watching the match on TV and writing from home. This doesn't last long though and he has to leave to cover a match, so he leaves Harry with Artie. This turns out to be a mistake. Artie, and Harry bond and get along very well, but then Harry finds tons of people in his house partying and wrecking the place. Also Joe gets punched in the face by a crazy idiot. I will stop talking about the plot from here because you can pretty much guess the rest. Joe tries to get closer to a parent of one of artie's friends, and a lady who works at a bar. These do not end as you would expect. Well one does but I won't tell you which one. Clive Owen is fantastic in this, he gets to show his more sensitive side after being an awesome badass for years. The boy who plays Artie is good too, very convincing in how he handles his mum's death even though he can be annoying at times. Harry is great too, though I kept thinking he looked like Rupert Grint who played Ron in the harry potter films. This film was much better than I expected. It doesn't do anything new with it's story, but it tells it in a very heartwarming and sometimes sad way. The music was a bit dull though, it was done by Sigur Ros but it got a bit dull after a while.

What makes this film interesting is the chaos in the house. That may have been done before, but here we really get an in depth look into how Joe is really not a very good guy at times. He left his wife and his kid for a lady he knocked up, and he doesn't seem able to handle his kids very well for a while. He puts them in many situations that could injure them and he can be very selfish. He may have them in mind, and he never has bad intentions but they usually come off as general incompetence. Usually films like this would show the dad being a perfect guy who meets a new girl after his wife dies and lives happily ever after. This film really handles it's tender and sweet subject well. We really feel for Joe, he has a heart of gold but he just doesn't know how to deal with life. His wife was everything to him, and she did pretty much everything for him. Overall I would recommend this film. It may be a bit predictable, but it always does something with it's subject that you either didn't expect or that is so well done and heartwarming you don't care how cliche it is. I also watched Couple's retreat today, but that film doesn't deserve the time it would take for me to write a review. It sucks, there that is my review. The Boys are back doesn't though so see it

Overall I give it an 7.5 out of 10.