This is another coming of age story. I think I've learned that the key for a male oriented coming of age story is to include some discussions of girls, masturbation, and friends. This movie contains all the necessary elements. The movie follows four boys who attend a Catholic grade school sometime during the late 70s. The boys have a skewed perspective of authority and their place in the world. They are bonded by mischief and a comic book all of them are creating called the Atomic Trinity. When they aren't pulling pranks, they ride their bikes to a meeting place, drink alcohol, and draw comics. The film does an interesting job of using real illustrated cartoons to represent the boys' perception. These scenes are inter-spliced with the live action scenes. For example, we see Sister Assumpta driving her moped. In their mind, The Atomic Trinity (a name they call their super hero personas) will fight an evil motorcycle gang of nuns led by Penguin. These are somewhat enjoyable scenes, but can't carry the movie by itself. (Think of a better Tank Girl and you have some idea of this interplay).

The movie is produced by Jodie Foster's Egg company. Jodie seems very loyal as characters and actors seem to repeat on a par with Hal Hartley. In this movie, Jenna Malone has grown up slightly from her young Jodie character in Contact. Jenna becomes the cliched Catholic School Girlfriend of one of our protagonists. The stereotype is played with, adhered to, and surpassed. Jenna's character is naughty, but she unveils this over time. Each layer seems a little more skewed than before.

Ultimately our protagonists are torn apart, face an adversity and are forced to come back together for one last mega prank.

There's not much new here. If you've seen Stand by Me or any of the dozens of other movies, you probably have a good feel for this movie. The story adds a few kinks, but not enough for it be considered a true original work.