The premise of this movie initially seemed interesting, but the acting was so overdone and the mother was SO irritating within the first 10 minutes of the film that I little desire to watch further. I actually thought that I would identify and empathize with the mother, but this character immediately became defensive, sarcastic and demeaning toward the officer who had agreed to bend the rules to help her. She constantly interrupted him, corrected him about irrelevant issues and was generally incredibly disrespectful and arrogant. Despite claiming to be desperate to find her son, she lied about her son being upset when he left and wouldn't provide basic information that could help to identify him, then complained about the officer not being forthcoming with information. She appeared to be actively searching for reasons to feel marginalized, when it was she who initiated a belligerent attitude toward the officer, her husband and the lieutenant. She certainly didn't act as though she had a PhD in psychology, because she didn't demonstrate even a basic understanding about how to work cooperatively with other human beings, and seemed to have a whole host of her own unresolved underlying issues that she constantly projected onto others. She defended her son's adversarial attitude toward the police and made sweeping generalizations about the white children at her son's school, while automatically assuming that everyone else was being prejudiced, as opposed to considering that they may be reacting to her open hostility. Was this the tone the movie intended to convey? I don't know, but I stuck it out to the depressing end and ultimately regretted wasting the time. Other people may find something rewarding about this movie, but I need to have at least some positive emotional investment in one of the main characters, and this film inspired nothing but irritation for me. The only character I had any empathy for was the unseen son.
Review of American Son
