It is difficult these days to watch a film that presents child trafficking as entertainment. Spoiler alert: at its heart, An Angry Boy is a rape-revenge film. It won some awards at film festivals, and presents its topic seriously and unflinchingly presents its violence.  Owen (Scott Callenberger), the eponymous Angry Boy, lives up to his title, and with good cause. A high school student in the Bronx, Owen sees a woman being mugged at an ATM and attacks the muggers. A video of him rescuing the victim goes viral and he is recognized. Mark (Thomas Cambridge) captures Owen and his mother, and kills her with a hammer in a particularly gruesome scene. Owen’s best friend Ricky (Caleb Lowery) arrives to stop Mark from killing Owen and chase down Mark, who escapes.

The film then slowly reveals Owen’s history. Dr. Fisher (Jason Simon) shows up to confirm Owen is, indeed, an angry boy, and provide some backstory: they met years before when Owen and his mother fled a dangerous cult. Except it’s not a cult – it’s a ring of pedophiles. The film even namechecks NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association, a real pedophilia advocacy group. It is difficult not to find parts of the film exploitive. Owen was kidnapped and trafficked as a child, and forgot his experiences. Mark has a personal vendetta against Owen, as Owen escaped him years before. Eric Roberts makes a brief cameo as the leader of the “cult,” although his total screentime is perhaps three minutes or less.

The second half of the film consists of Owen tracking down Mark, who is aided and abetted by a man and a woman, for different reasons. Mark also has a current child that he is holding and grooming. Without spoilers, Owen gets his revenge and the film implies now that he has Mark’s diary he will be hunting down other child molesters.

Kudos to Cambridge – his character is truly loathsome and one cannot wait for him to get his comeuppance. Indeed, the performances of the film are all spot on from Mia Y. Anderson, playing Ricky’s mom and a meter maid who is interested in Owen’s well-being to Lauren McCann, a seeming good Samaritan who turns out to be much more sinister. Callenberger carries the film well. It is also well shot and directed.  My largest issue with this film is its presentation of its subject matter. I cannot escape the feeling that it is verging on exploitive, although no sexual acts are depicted. One does not enjoy this film, one watches it in horror.  As each revelation is made, with every scene Mark has with his new victim, with every discover Owen makes, the film draws us further into the uncomfortable reality of child predation. The film does not need Eric Roberts. He exists for a “star” name above the title and serves a single function in the film – he’s not a character but a plot point with dialogue tags. It’s a well-made ugly little film. Viewer beware – with nothing overtly salacious the film still leaves a mark and a residue. Owen’s vendetta does nothing to actually help us deal with the reality of child sex trafficking.

Watch at your own risk – this film is its own trigger warning.

8 out of 10 (for technical and performance work)