HOLES. 2003

Set in a Texas desert juvenile detention center, Holes is Cool Hand Luke for kids. The kids spend their days forced to labor in the broiling desert digging holes all across the landscape for the evil warden (Sigourney Weaver) who is searching for a lost treasure, about which a story within a story is told. There are numerous threats & plot twists, & cool strange deadly lizards.

By the time this film wraps up, it's been very enjoyable, if awfully minor, with a number of charming character-performances along the way, & kids who more than pass muster as actors.

For the first half of the film, though, the characters have trouble coming to life in a by-the-numbers script that seems more constructed as a Disney project than written with belief in the characters. But in the second half when plot twists begin to enter the story & weave back on themselves, the story does finally become captivating.

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