“Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys” — The Fargo Theater usually offers a respite from inane mainstream films, and one example this summer was the flawed yet compelling “Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys,” which screened in July. It has a great premise: two boys experience the drudgery of attending Catholic school in the ’70s, but in their minds, they are having wild comic book adventures (which the audience sees as animated sequences). Jodie Foster’s and Vincent D’Onofrio’s characters are underdeveloped, although Jena Malone is memorable as a messed-up girlfriend. This film could have gone down 20 interesting paths, but it chooses none of them, settling for a stupid shock ending.
—John Hansen, NDSU Spectrum, Aug. 27, 2002