Bullying is not a new bad behaviour in our society but it is clear that this behaviour had been escalated in the recent years. Director Joel Greenburg reveals these kinds of issues in his wonderful movie Ironsides focusing on the fact that nothing really good comes from violence. With a shy balance he ignores all the big hollywood pumps out. There is something magnificent in Ironsides which is the quality of the actos who are all brought from the streets with no acting deep experience. Toliver Crisp, playing Randy Scott, was very successful. In his main role, he keeps trying avoiding his family members especially his brothers who keep bullying him and driving him to pick up fights.
His father, actor Devin Eldridge, has a strong relationship with his son Randy and keeps representing the stability force in the family bring peace eachtime things get out of order. Being a show boxer, he tends so often to explain to his boy that his job is not for violence purpose to beat down other but it's just making a living in a noble friendly kind of way.
In the same time and in an other portrait of society, three brothers Mike, Jimmy and Simon Coltrain suffer from their environment especially their father's behaviour who is drunk all the time. And unlike Randy's dad those boys live in a military house forced to lift heavey weight and encouraged to perform violence behaviour through fighting too much with the other guys.
Personally, I like the story and the fitting music at the end of the film. However, some of the fightings were not acted in a perfect way and the language while fighting is not that realistic compared to the protagonists' ages but without any doubt Greenburg did a great job. I really recommend watching this film despite you would probably notice it's kind of a home movie but it's not. It's a rare piece of action in which young boys are involved and the action is repeated through almost all scenes which makes the plot really unique and interesting.