You may not want to 'Catch that Kid'

By Forrest Hartman
Reno Gazette-Journal

CATCH THAT KID (PG) One Star (Poor) "Catch That Kid" is being sold as a children's movie, yet the focus is on children breaking the law while placing their lives and the lives of others in jeopardy. True, these youngsters have their hearts in the right place, since they're trying to help someone. But is this really the message we want to send? Kristen Stewart, Max Thieriot, and Corbin Bleu star for director Bart Freundlich. 20th Century Fox, 92 minutes.

Together, they decide to rob a high-tech bank to get the $250,000 Maddy's father needs for experimental surgery.

As a kid, I would have ate it up as Maddy completed an exhilarating free-climb inside the huge bank vault, then tried to outrun police in a nitroglycerin-charged go-cart. After all, that's the kind of stuff preteen boys dream of. But as an adult and parent, I wonder if we should encourage such dreams.

"Catch That Kid" is being sold as a children's movie, yet the focus is on children breaking the law while placing their lives and the lives of others in jeopardy. True, these youngsters have their hearts in the right place, since they're trying to help Maddy's dad. But is this really the message we want to send?

What's more, Gus and Austin are in love with Maddy, and she uses that knowledge to convince them to join the robbery. How? By falsely declaring her love to each. Sex as a weapon? For 12-year-olds? Granted, Maddy doesn't prance about like she's in a Super Bowl halftime show, but she does use her sexuality to convince the boys to do something they might not otherwise do.

Ultimately, the film backtracks on both the crime and Maddy's lies, making it clear that she wasn't making the best choices. But she doesn't face consequences for those bad choices, which makes one wonder if they were really so bad.

In fairness, most kids will go to this movie, talk to their parents about it and come away morally intact. They will not, however, leave having seen a good film.

True to form in movies like this, 90 percent of the adults are depicted as idiots, and the remaining 10 percent are stereotypical placeholders.

If screenwriters Michael Brandt and Derek Haas attempted to write a serviceable script, it isn't obvious. Of course, their previous effort was the mediocre "2 Fast 2 Furious." The bank robbery plot is not only completely unbelievable, it borrows from much better films. The climactic go-cart chase, for instance, seems an awful lot like the Mini Cooper showdown in the previously mentioned "Italian Job."

Rated PG for language and violence.