Storyline

Johnny Mad Dog, maybe 15, leads a band of boy soldiers in a civil war in an unnamed African country. "Don't want to die? Don't be born" is one of their shouted mottoes. We follow Mad Dog and his crew - No Good Advice, Butterfly, Chicken Hair, and others - as they kill, pillage rape, interrogate, and terrorize on their march to the capital. They take a TV station and lead an assault on the President's residence. We also follow Laokole, about Johnny age, as she tries to hold together her family of brother and disabled father. Is there more than chaos and inhumanity here? At war since age 10, has Johnny anything inside?—

Plot Keywords

character name in title, animal in title, machine gun, father daughter relationship, wheelbarrow, death of parent, brother sister relationship, tv reporter, looting, suitcase, female nudity, wedding dress, pig, africa, burial, cross dressing, death, female frontal nudity, genocide, gunfire

Short Review

Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's deftly stylized camerawork reminds us at key intervals that what we're seeing is artifice, dramatization.

Trailer

Streaming Service

1. Amazon Video : Rent from $1.99, Or $0.00 with a Prime membership