Holes (2003)

Seen on 17-7-2009 - HBO
Director: Andre Davis
Although the movie has a weird story line, we decided to watch it anyway on account of our familiarity Andrew Davis' films ("The Fugitive," "A Perfect Murder", "The Guardian," "Collatoral Damage" we enjoyed earlier)
But as it turns out, this one is not as enjoyable and, if anything, it was disappointing.
Based on Louis Sachar's novel, this film starts innocently by sending a boy (falsely accused of stealing sneakers of a celebrity sportsman) to a correction center in Texas, where he is forced to dig holes as a measure of character building exercise, and leads us to a weird mysterious buried treasure theme. As critic Roger Ebert puts it "it tells a story that's not funny ha-ha but funny peculiar." But the movie it seems has a Harry Potter-like penetration into youth culture!!
Whatever, the movie might be interesting for thirteen year olds and this is because it leads us to stories of buried treasure in legendary past. It falls to Stanley Yelnats IV (read family name in reverse to see what's funny about it) to lift the curse on his family, dig up and find in the holes the treasure chest buried there by one of his great-great grandfathers. Along the way this story is linked to another flash back story about a run-away bandit queen. The fugitive boys at the correction center decode the signs that they stumble upon in order to reach the buried chest and also, in the process, get evil the wardens of the correction center caught by the police.