Kat Candler's exploration of toxic male adolescence is handsome and haunting, with a star-making performance by young star Josh Wiggins...

| Oct 10, 2020

While there's nothing innately wrong with Candler's careful exploration of a troubled youth discovering the necessity and wisdom of doing the right thing, despite a pair of laudable performances, the essence of the film feels stagnantly predestined.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 30, 2019

Wiggins is a superstar in his debut, capturing the volcanic nature of teens harboring too much energy for their undeveloped bodies to contain. He makes good decisions and reacts well to what he's given his more experienced adult counterparts.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 28, 2019

Candler gets strong performances from both her young cast and adult players. Unfortunately, this gets overshadowed by the predictable plot and the distractingly shaky camera angles meant to give the film added grit.

| Aug 15, 2017

Candler paints this broken family with an authenticity that draws one in and forces us to feel their suffocating inability to escape their own pain.

| Original Score: A- | Mar 7, 2016

Despair is not quiet for a broken father (Aaron Paul) and his troublemaker sons in Kat Candler's brisk, transfixing drama, which takes place in blue-collar southeast Texas.

| Original Score: B+ | Dec 3, 2014

"Hellion" just can't quite convince or coalesce its ideas of struggle, pain and fury in a meaningful or new way.

| Original Score: C | Aug 24, 2014

Hellion paints a plaintive portrait of a family trapped in the bottom echelon of America's middle class.

| Original Score: 7.5/10 | Jul 31, 2014

"Hellion" pads its slender, commonplace, but potentially rewarding premise with contrivances, clichs, repetitiousness, and, when all else fails, implausible, arbitrary melodrama.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 24, 2014

"Hellion" has nothing if not empathy for every one of its characters. But without a more original story or a distinctive visual presence, it's hard for it to rise above a crowded field.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 23, 2014

Not that inarticulate characters can't be compelling if they are written with subtlety, acted with insight and, most of all, framed by a directorial vision, but "Hellion," despite a promising debut from Wiggins, falls short in at least two of the above.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 17, 2014

The realism in "Hellion" is admirable, as are the actors' emotion performances. These wrenching qualities also make the film a tough sell.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 11, 2014

The acting overall is strong, but Paul, still testing the waters after "Breaking Bad," is extraordinarily controlled.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 10, 2014

Hellion fits into something I like to call the "festival bubble".

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 10, 2014

The acting is stronger than the rest of the film itself, which sports far too much shaky camera work and a conclusion that is obviously foreshadowed by the appearance of a gun early on.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 10, 2014

It takes a lot to stand out in a cast that includes Aaron Paul and Juliette Lewis, but Josh Wiggins proves up to the task. It'll be fun to see where his career takes him next.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 10, 2014

Raw and poignant, capturing the bursting aggression of early teenage years and the mummifying trance of grief. It's often heartbreaking and periodically frightening.

| Original Score: B | Jul 10, 2014

Candler's plotting is predictable and her characters should be substantially deepened, but her ability to capture the rage of male adolescence and the numbness of grief is nothing less than superb.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 9, 2014

Everything about it is so indie that it feels like it's following a formula as rigid as that of any romcom or teen-meat-on-the-hoof slasher picture.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 9, 2014

The relief you'll experience during the beautifully modulated ending to Hellion may elicit a heavy sigh, deep and gratifying.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 7, 2014