The film benefits from two notably strong and affecting performances by Ely Solan and Leon Hughes, yet much of the rest feels unsettlingly exploitative. The abduction and murder of toddler James Bulger in 1993 caused a significant stir in the UK, so this depiction was certain to be sensitive given its reliance on excerpts from their police interviews to recount the events of that day. Because surveillance cameras weren’t commonplace at the time, reconstructing what occurred depended not only on their progressively distressed and disturbing accounts but also on observations of interactions with bystanders who noticed a young boy seemed to be in trouble but were unable to prevent the resulting tragedy. I struggled to understand the film's intention; it isn’t presented as a standard police procedural, nor does it provide much background information. Allowing twenty-five years to pass gave filmmaker Vincent Lambe an opportunity to attempt including some kind of psychological assessment of the two boys—something that might have clarified or even lessened culpability for their actions. What were they like? Is there more we understand now about their childhoods, or what could have driven them? After all, they themselves were scarcely ten years old, so did they grasp the difference between right and wrong, or truly comprehend the impact of their violence? It’s an intriguing idea, but it concentrates too narrowly and without full resolution on a single, intensely dramatic element.

Source on TMDB