Little Boy Blue (film)

Little Boy Blue is a 1997 film

Living in the backwoods of Texas is the dysfunctional and apparently incestuous West family: a psychotic war veteran father, Ray (John Savage), a compliant wife, Kate (Nastassja Kinski), and a 19-year-old son, Jimmy (Ryan Phillippe); who is relegated to a warehouse outside the family home. Ray and Kate seem to be a normal couple running their bar, raising their two sons (around 3 and 5 year-old), but as they return home from work Ray turns violent and abusive. At his insistence Kate and Jimmy were having a shocking and strong sexual relationship. Ray goes even so far as to call Jimmy "Little boy blue" and to shout that 'he knows' Jimmy likes it.

As it turns out, during Jimmy's conversation with his girlfriend, Traci, (Jenny Lewis), he rejects a full scholarship for college. He cannot leave his brothers with his father. He explains that if he is not there Ray will take all his rage onto his little brothers, which he finds not tenable. Traci can understand that, but she cannot give up her own future, and so they eventually break up. The movie ends with their probable re-engagement.

In the course of the events it becomes clear that Ray harbors a secret he cannot share with anyone. When a stranger appears in his bar and wants to befriend Ray, the latter gets suspicious and in and attempts to knock down the man. He kills someone who appears to be a private detective. Jimmy starts becoming suspicious about his father being a murderer and one night when Kate visits him in the warehouse he asks her to take the boys and leave Ray for good. She declines for reason of panic.

Kate explains that she cannot imagine what she can do in such a frightening place, unbeknownst to her. Ray enters the warehouse and upon seeing Kate in Jimmy's arms he generates' a ruckus, and insists that Kate and he should tell Jimmy the truth. Kate manages to calm him down, but Jimmy is still too frustrated and the next morning he goes to Traci's place to talk to her and to say his final goodbye. She listens to his shocking story about Ray's abusive behavior and is startled when Jimmy says that he cannot leave his own sons with such a Vietnam-traumatised monster. He leaves her house and goes back to his place. On his way he is stopped by Ray who takes advantage of the absence of Kate and the boys and tells Jimmy that he needs to know who he really is and why he keeps on calling Jimmy "Little boy blue". Figuring out where Ray is going Jimmy wants to stop him and a fight is started for which Ray is obviously ready and has been expecting it all along.

A few days after that Jimmy is nowhere to be seen (with everyone except Traci assuming that he has left the town) a mysterious woman (Shirley Knight) appears in town looking for her private detective. As the police interrogate her the secret unfolds about Ray, Jimmy and herself. Years ago she had met Ray when she, her husband and their newborn baby where driving their family minivan and Ray needed a ride. While Ray had complemented them on their beautiful baby-boy and conducted a cheerful, friendly conversation, she was reading a book to her son (the same "little boy blue" book Ray had been keeping among his personal things and which Jimmy had taken from his elder son earlier to prevent Ray from punishing the boy for stealing), without any hint of what was coming. Hours after they had picked up Ray, she was tied to a tree, beaten severely, her partner killed and watching as Ray walked away with her son, got into the minivan and drove away. As she breaks into tears while telling the story, she does not forget to mention that "it was 19 years ago and that nobody helped her then and did not find her son."

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