Holes, directed by Andrew Davis, is so named because young juvenile delinquent boys assigned to Camp Green Lake, Texas, are supposed to spend the day digging a hole as big as they are tall. (The actual film location is the Mojave Desert.) They are to report if they find anything to the authorities, notably the warden (played by Sigourney Weaver). Meanwhile, Stanley Yelnats (played by Shia LaBoeuf) is walking one day under what appears to be the Hyperion Bridge in Los Angeles. A pair of tennis shoes lands on him from above. Police track him down for stealing the shoes, and he is sent to Camp Green Lake in view of his past record as a juvenile delinquent; that his family is full of eccentrics, who collect shoes of all sorts, does not help his case. Green Lake, however, is dry; the camp is in a desert, with rattlesnakes and poisonous lizards, and nobody who has ever tried to escape has ever lived to tell the tale. While in the camp, Stanley makes friends with "Zero" (played by Khleo Thomas), a nickname for Zeroni, whom he teaches to read. The rest of the boys are mildly naughty, but of course they are delinquents. The warden's underling, Mr. Sir (played by Jon Voight), is rather mangy, but at least Dr. Pendanski (played by Tim Blake Nelson), who provides lunch and some psychological support to the boys, is decent. One day Zero wanders off, angered by an insult. Soon, Stanley heads after him, also after getting fed up with camp discipline. Stanley is a fourth-generation descendant of someone from Latvia who was advised by an Egyptian fortuneteller named Zeroni (played by Eartha Kitt) to go to America, where he was stranded in exactly the same territory, and the story of his forebear directs him to find Zero, then to survive by finding an oasis at the top of a mountain in the desert. Then Stanley recalls hearing about a treasure buried by his great grandfather, returns to dig in a hole near the camp's headquarters, and finds the treasure. The strongbox bears his name, Stanley Yelnats. Meanwhile, Legal Aid has sent an attorney (one of Law & Order's regulars), and finally justice prevails in some delightful and unexpected ways. Based on the 1998 novel by Louis Sachar, Holes is a spring break film for subteens, as the subject of sex never comes up, though some of the delinquents are clearly past puberty. If the children do not understand the inside jokes aimed at their accompanying parents, at least the generation gap will narrow when the family goes home to discuss and replay the various scenes. Adults will learn that their children are growing up and deserve to be given a chance to be independent; children will realize that adults need to grow up, too! MH

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Holes
by Louis Sachar

It's a strange story, but strangely compelling and lovely too. Louis Sachar uses poker-faced understatement to create a bizarre but believable landscape -- a place where Major Major Major Major of Catch-22 would feel right at home..