Boot Camp (2008) Mila Kunis, Gregory Smith, Peter Stormare, Regine Nehy, Alejandro Rae, Christopher Jacot, Tygh Runyan Movie Review

Boot Camp (2008)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Mila Kunis in Boot Camp (2008)

Boot Camp Escape Plan

Whilst Sophie (Mila Kunis) dabbles with drugs she does so to escape her controlling stepfather which leads to him enrolling her in Dr. Arthur Hail's (Peter Stormare) island boot camp where through his tough, relentless regime sets about re-educating troubled teens. After Sophie has been grabbed by some of Dr. Hail's goons her boyfriend Ben (Gregory Smith) confronts Sophie's parents over what they have done and vows to find her and bring her back. To achieve this Ben fakes having a drug problem so that he too can end up at Hail's boot camp but in doing so they both are faced with the harsh regime which Hail has in place with Logan (Tygh Runyan), his enforcer, making life hell for those there and taking advantage of some of them.

I looked through a few reviews of "Boot Camp" after I watched it and was kind of re-assured by the number of people who said they were not entirely sure what to make of it because I am not either. It isn't a complicated movie as we have an evil stepfather arranging for Sophie to be taken to a brutal boot camp where until you are broken and submit to the regime you have no hope of returning home. And part of that re-education is to make life a misery for new recruits, helping to break them down and beat them when need be. It makes "Boot Camp" feel almost like a prison movie where we have Sophie and her boyfriend Ben trying to find some way of escaping this isolated island under a cruel authoritarian warden.

Gregory Smith in Boot Camp (2008)

The thing is, is that "Boot Camp" is reportedly based on a true story or at least influenced by a real situation as we are informed there are similar boot camps going on around the world. But that sense of true story doesn't come across as so much attention is placed on the brutal regime which Dr. Hail runs. Interestingly whilst we have Dr. Hail as the architect of a re-education regime we do see that his motives are not evil, just crazy and it is Logan and his sadistic nature which is a major problem.

One thing which did work in "Boot Camp" was the casting of Mila Kunis and Gregory Smith as they both convince as their characters. You can believe that Kunis whilst a bit of a wild child is also a smart mouth and at the same time Gregory Smith has that honourable nice guy thing going on which means you can believe that he would do what ever it takes to protect his girl.

What this all boils down to is that "Boot Camp" is an interesting movie with good performances. But I am not entirely sure about it as whilst it kept me interested I am not sure what I was meant to get out of the movie especially because of its true story origins.


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