DVD Review: "December Boys"

Christian Byers, Daniel Radcliffe, Lee Cormie in "December Boys."

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter got his first kiss in the recent "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." He gets kissed and a lot more in "December Boys," an otherwise dull and predictable tale of four orphans who spend their Christmas holidays on an Australian shore.

December, of course, is the height of summer in Australia but the four orphans are called the December Boys because they were all born in the last month of the year. The four are Maps (Radcliffe), Misty (Lee Cormie), Sparks (Christian Byers) and Spit (James Fraser). Radcliffe gets top billing because everyone knows him from the Potter series and it's his name that attracts attention. The movie, however, is really Misty's story.

The four are in a Catholic orphanage in the desolate Australian outback so this trip the shore is really a gift. They are housed by a nautical couple, Bandy (Jack Thompson) and his cancer-stricken wife (Kris McQuade). Once there they learn that a neighboring couple, Fearless (Sullivan Stapleton), so named because he's a motorcycle daredevil, and his wife Teresa (Victoria Hill), who gets boys' hormones raging as soon as they arrive, may adopt one of them. Misty goes out of his way to make sure that he's the one selected. Maps, meanwhile, enjoys a bittersweet dalliance with Lucy (the captivating Teresa Palmer).

I was interested in seeing this movie to see whether Radcliffe possessed the acting chops to carry a straight dramatic role (he does) and whether he had the star power to elevate such a vehicle (the jury's still out on that but based on this effort I would have to say no). There are a lot of hokey religious references and the boys spot saints in the unlikeliest of places. There's also a tacked-on ending that raises more questions than it answers and is completely unnecessary.

The cinematography, however, is brilliant. The way David Connell captures the locations almost makes you forget just how simplistic the rest of this effort is.

Grade C: