Troop Zero (2020)

REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER

Hoorah! for TROOP ZERO, directors Bert & Bertie's Original on Amazon Prime, written by Lucy Alibar, who wrote BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD.

If you put LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE and (Joe Johnston's undervalued) OCTOBER SKY into a blender, you'd arrive at TROOP ZERO. It's a homespun independent drama about a young misfit girl named Christmas Flint in rural Georgia dealing with the loss of her mother by attempting to communicate with her using a flashlight at night. She believes her mom is part of the tapestry of stars in the nightsky. It's 1977. When a representative from NASA arrives and tells the local Birdie Troop of Scouts the winners of the regional jamboree will participate in the recording of a message to go on the probe Voyager 1 into the far reaches of space, Christmas sees her chance to reach out to her mother. But first, she has to assemble a new troop of birdie scouts. She approaches the other misfit children she knows, including a boy who prefers to behave like a girl, a Christian girl with one eye, and two fighting girls named Hell No and Smash.

The end credits feature some archive footage of the record being placed on Voyager 1 as well as the actual recordings of the children.

TROOP ZERO is full of character - Viola Davis and Allison Janney play the surrogate mother-figures, troop leaders at war, while Jim Gaffigan plays dad, or Boss Man, as he likes to be known. There's a lovely touch of character in Gaffigan's performance in that he keeps a toothbrush behind his ear like a pencil, taking it out now and then to chew. Is he keeping his teeth clean because he works as a low-rent, trailer-home lawyer? Is he trying to give up smoking? Is it a habit he had as a kid and couldn't shake? It could be all three or none of the above. It doesn't matter. It's never explained, but it's an excellent example of an actor having a prop to help define his character without the prop stealing the scene.

 There are a couple of stylistic mis-steps (for example, having the gang at one point walking in slo-mo to Little Green Bag in homage to RESERVOIR DOGS feels lazy and anachronistic; and it jars.) But these can be forgiven.

The film is warm and unassuming; and ends up where you expect it to but gets there differently to how you expect it.

It can be watched for McKenna Grace's performance alone as Christmas Flint. She is moving, funny and true without ever being annoying. (At thirteen she's already racked up plenty of credits, including young Carol Danvers in CAPTAIN MARVEL, as the child genius alongside Chris Evans in GIFTED, and the young Tonya Harding in I, TONYA).

Recommended.