BRUISER

Here's the decision. BRUISER is a genuinely good-looking, well-acted family drama with something rare underneath it: a mother of real faith and a story that quietly honors biblical morality. The characters talk through their pain like adults, and the movie never pretends a boy's bad behavior is anything but bad behavior.

But two things hold it back hard. First, the language — this is one of the most profanity-soaked scripts you'll encounter, with about 40 "f" words alone, so heavy it becomes distracting. Second, the ending simply doesn't end. The conflicts the story builds are left dangling, and you'll walk away feeling you watched Part 1 of something that forgot to finish.

So: if you're an adult who can weather the language and won't mind a story that leaves you hanging, there's real merit here — watch it at home, where you control the volume and the exits. If you're choosing for the family, choose something else.

Fourteen-year-old Darious comes home from his expensive city prep school for vacation and finds himself friendless. His stepfather, Malcolm, a car salesman, is strict, busy, and aloof. His mother, Monica, is loving but a little suffocating.

Then a mysterious drifter named Porter drifts into his life — and Darious learns Porter is his biological father, the man who abandoned the family. He decides to get to know him anyway. The choice pulls two very different men into conflict, and pulls Darious toward someone "cool" rather than someone of good character. Whether that's a mistake he'll regret is where the story goes — and where we stop.

Three stars, and here's what they mean. The cinematography, writing, and acting are good — good enough to carry you through a slow-burning family drama. Monica, Darious's mother, is the best-drawn character in the film, a woman whose faith gives the story its center of gravity. There's just enough development of the major players to keep you invested.

The rest is a mixed bag. The other production values are merely middling. And the biggest problem is structural: the ending doesn't resolve the conflicts and problems the story raises. It's frustrating enough to make the whole thing feel incomplete, as if you've been handed the first episode of a series and told to wait for the rest. Add the relentless profanity, and a promising film keeps tripping over itself just short of arriving.

Surprisingly for a film this rough around the edges, BRUISER carries a worldview of biblical morality, with some Christian imagery woven through. Monica is a woman of faith: a crucifix hangs in her car, she attends church faithfully, and she meets the hard situation with her son's biological father with something close to a biblical posture. "Let's just be good to Porter," she tells Darious, "and the Lord will be good to us."

The family, too, gets things right more often than not. Darious's relationships with his mother, stepfather, and father are fairly mature — they discuss their problems and offer real emotional support and parental guidance. And when Darious disrespects his parents, verbally and physically, the movie makes clear he's confused without ever condoning what he does.

Porter is the counterweight. However understandable his desire to know his son, he doesn't have the boy's best interests at heart. He encourages Darious to disobey his parents, gets him into trouble, and eventually goes further still. "That's just my life philosophy," he says of himself. "Everybody's got one." True enough — but his is reckless, and it drives the crisis of the third act.

Underneath it all is a boy hungry for a father, and drawn to the wrong one. Scripture knows that hunger, and names a better Father: "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1).

BRUISER has more heart and craft than its rough surface suggests — a faithful mother, a moral spine, real acting. It also drowns that heart in profanity and forgets to finish its own story. So here's our answer, the same one we opened with: wait for home — adults only. Planning family movie night instead? Start with our latest family-friendly picks.