Ricky Baker is an orphan. The first concern that came to mind was the absence of his parents. In his case, he never knew his parents at all, since birth. All he had was a picture of his young mother. As such, he had no role model to look up to. Social learning theory builds around the concept of how we learn things by observing others. A key 'others' is our parents and family, since we normally spend the majority of our time with them in the early years of our life. However, this was not applicable to Ricky. He had to learn from somewhere else. That being said, it was highly likely that he mirrored the gangster lifestyle as a role model, or tried to. To illustrate, in the film, we can see how he involves himself in minor acts of gangsterism, such as vandalism, minor arson, and general misconduct. Also, Ricky likes to reference to gangster lingo and even chose Tupac Shakur as his idol.
A quiet and subtle theme of the movie is character of Hec. Although not explicitly described, Hec represent a minority group that is subtly frowned down upon and largely ignored. An ex-convict. Many people would easily distrust past offenders, with the mentality of 'he did it once, he can do it again'. In fact, there is rarely anything good associated with ex-convicts, as these perceptions are further strengthen by criminal movies and news of offenders with a convicted past. That may explain why Hec lived in isolation with his wife, Bella, and involves himself with lone tasks such as hunting or jungle trekking. As far as I know, this particular group of people are largely neglected and even stigmatized in many ways. We often hear of advocation for the right's of women, LGBT, immigrants and so forth. But in the case of ex-cons, no one seems interested. No one is keen to bring them out of the pit of stigma that they are thrown in. Of course, I understand the rationale behind it. Ex-cons are technically criminals after all, so they could be dangerous and avoiding would sound like a wise decision. But more often that not, there is more to the story of an ex-con, not just the official legal prosecutions. As an example, we could see how Hec's background was dug out and published in the newspapers when the two of them disappeared into the woods. The media unsubtly suggested that this fellow ex-con had most likely kipnapped this young boy, given his past. As such, Hec was targeted for capture very quickly, without actually digging further into the details of the story.
This movie, although light-hearted and cheeky in nature, showed a darker underlying theme. On one hand, you have orphans. On the other, you have ex-criminals. Both groups are people who undergo great difficulties in life, in terms of social, emotional or psychological issues. As such, it was good to be sharply reminded of the hardship that these folks suffer, unbeknownst to most. On the surface, they may be rebellious as a child or unfeeling as a old man, but they have gone through much that shaped them so. We have to learned to look beyond what is obvious, and see people for what they truly are, and not what we think they are.
