Good concept, poorly executed.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Nathan stays with his mother who is a drug addict and a mother in name only. He's left to fend for himself and to get drugs to support his mother's addiction. He manages this by prostituting himself. At the start of the movie, after making some money the only way he knows how, he brings home some drugs for his mother and she dies from an overdose. He's taken back to a police station and someone from social services is called to take him into care, but he decides to run away. His father is unknown, even to his mother, but he claims he's heading west to find him. I was never very clear about why he was actually motivated to head toward Vancouver. Maybe he just wanted to get as far away as possible from the life he had been living. He finds a way to coerce a man, Boon, who he runs into at a diner to give him a lift. Coincidentally, Boon was also a man that happened to be at the police station at the same time as he was. Probably one of the greatest weaknesses of the storyline was the heavy reliance on coincidences and the equally unlikely way so many things fell into place to carry the plot forward.It's hardly surprising that Boon, who appears to be transporting a supply of illegal drugs to someone in Vancouver and who has a load of personal baggage vis-à-vis his own family and childhood, bonds with Nathan along the way, while ostensibly trying to keep an emotional distance from him. Equally expected, there are some misunderstandings, disagreements and complications to their relationship along the way, but it's also fairly obvious that both Nathan and Boon grow on each other.The ending was something of a surprise, although it too depended in part on some credulity stretching coincidences and a presumed & slightly improbable happily-ever-after denouement.Well worth watching and a feel-good movie if you're not too picky about the overly "convenient" plot development. The choice of "Jet Boy" for a title seems unfortunate since it might conjure up ideas of a animated comic book character.Allowing for some dramatic license, the characters were believable and the acting was good. Branden Nadon and Dylan Walsh were especially good as Nathan and Boon.

*** Some BIG spoilers about plot development follow, so be warned *** I caught this movie a few days ago and I've been thinking about it ever since. I almost never write movie reviews here. I'm glad to see a version of this film has made it to DVD. It is hard to explain exactly what makes this such a great film to me, but writing as someone with a few father/son issues of my own this movie has unexpectedly and profoundly affected me.The performances from the leads are great, especially from Branden Nadon and Dylan Walsh, and the story moves along well. Young Branden is just excellent here - he breathes real life into his character - making him both toughened and vulnerable at the same time. Where is he? We need to see more of him as an adult actor. The script may become a little unrealistic at the end to push us towards our happy ending, but I can forgive it that because it's the ending I was hoping for. Some of the other characters are only sketched, but they are all carefully positioned to support the two performances at the heart of this story. I challenge any audience to remain unmoved by the final scenes between Boon and Nathan. How could anyone want anything else for these characters? Love and redemption win for them both, and they find it in each other. I can honestly say that nothing on film has moved me more than this for a long time.If you're used to a diet of slick, multiplex fodder then some of the production values may disappoint you occasionally, but none of that gets in the way of the telling of this neatly crafted little story.Dave Schultz is to be congratulated for creating a very moving independent Canadian film on what I imagine was a limited budget. He successfully navigates a taboo subject to create a little gem of storytelling about fathers and sons.And the track over the closing titles "Whisper in Time" by Bad Religion is killer! Very appropriate.Recommended.Greg

I gave this a 9 out of 10, which is extraordinary for what, in many ways, is a pretty bad film. Sometimes a movie can touch you, like this one does, even though you know it has some terribly bad aspects like cardboard-cutout characters and unbelievable plot turns. In a movie that often has the complexity and production values of an ABC Afternoon Special, there is the stirring performance of Branden Nadon as Nathan, a young male prostitute, latching onto a drifter he wants to be his ... father figure? lover? both? There are many unanswered questions here, opportunities missed, time spent on uninteresting plot lines. But instead of walking away in disgust, Nadon's performance and character just leaves you hungry for more, and wishing scenes had been expanded. There's a scene where Nathan tells a gay teen who has just kissed him, "I just want to be a good kid," and it so excruciating and sweet and sad you wish the scene had gone on forever. When Nathan accompanies the drifter to the drifter's home town, none of the people he encounters there know how worldly he is, or how wounded he is, and how he longs to belong to someone. It's a poignant performance you won't easily forget.

This movie reminded me in ways of Stand By Me and Boys In The Hood...very reflective, with themes of growing up and interpersonal relationship, but also like Stand By Me a theme of journey.Except for a somewhat overly sweet ending, the tone of the movie and the characters are right on the mark, exactly right for the themes and plot and character development. The acting was very real and human, and the characters could be easily related to. Even with sometimes sensitive subject matter, never did the acting seem at all false, in fact it seemed particularly true with the hardest subjects. (The sweet surprise ending, however, does not quite make sense with the rest of the plot, and made other parts of the plot seem somewhat unrealistic, though they were quite realistic without this revelation.)I would recommend the film highly. Note that due to sensitive subject matter, parents should probably see the film before letting younger children see it, and watch the film with them.