Backtrack Boys: NZIFF Review

Backtrack Boys: NZIFF Review

More gentle amble through troubled boys' lives and less about the dogs they're paired up with, director Catherine Scott's genial Backtrack Boys heads to Australia to talk second chances and maturity.

With an unfussy and unobtrusive camera, Scott follows the lives of boys in Aussie Bernie Shakeshaft's programme aimed at turning kids around as part of his residential programme.

It's tried and tested material admittedly - for every troubled kid, there's a familiar story to follow (the commonalities in these types of yarns is never earth-shattering), but what Scott does is to centre in on three boys, and make you care for them via simplicity of execution, and intimate portrayals.

Perpetual offender and youngster Russell, aka Rusty, is the wild card, a ready to bite, ready to fight, ready to run kid who's one incident away from jail; there's Zac, the teen who's like a big brother, but whose anger underneath his soft edges could destroy him and Tyson, the kid from jail, who's trying to go straight.

It's obviously heart-warming fare, and is intensely devastating when things don't go right as they should. While some may berate Scott for never really presenting the victims' side of the offending, her maturity in holding the boys upto account via their own interactions is commendable.

It's affecting admittedly, and gentle in many ways, but Backtrack Boys continues the lines set down by last year's Celia Lashlie doco, in that social interventions and people make the difference. These are not new conclusions, and there's an underlying sadness that these stories have to be repeatedly trotted out, but with sensitively handled fare such as this, maybe ultimately, the message will get through.