The 41-minute documentary Paperboys comes across as a slice of Americana. And I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. Welcome to Stillwater, Minnesota, as American a town as you're likely to find. It's a place where the front yards are green and meticulous, and neighbors still yack at each other from porch to porch. It's also a place where you'll still find afternoon paperboys on their bikes, delivering the hometown news—in this case, the Stillwater Gazette.

There's Brandon, in the Brett Favre jersey, walking us through his house and generally coming across as braindead, as he shares an eye-opening vision of future paperboys. There's Nick, offering a discourse about the difference between good kids and bad kids. And Andrew, videogame zombie complaining about American obesity while he drifts back and forth across his garage on a skateboard. There's Donnie, who's actually kinda sharp, at least comparatively. And Greg, the oldest of the bunch, a self-made hundredaire with his own entertainment system and selection of movies and games. And after meeting these suburban kids, you're struck by what they have in common: a strange obsession with rap and videogames. You're left weeping for the state of today's youth rather than thinking about these guys as paperboys.

Did director Mike Mills mean for us to lose sight of his subject matter and focus on the intelligence factor? There's not much actual paper delivery going on here. True, you see clips of each boy on his route, and brief glimpses of folding papers, but you get very little of the actual business of the paper route. This lack of focus makes me believe that Mills was going for something else. What this reviewer is left with, somewhat sourly, is a disturbing example of the dumbing down of America.

Regardless, Paperboys is a slight creation, a film that will provoke a mild reaction at best. Its 41-minute running time seems either too short or too long. There are too many participants for such a short examination, and much seems missing. But the film might have worked better by focusing on only one of the kids—say, that sharp Donnie. Paperboys left me curiously empty.

Palm Pictures presents Paperboys in a pretty good nonanamorphic-widescreen transfer of the documentary's original 1.85:1 presentation. For a non-enhanced presentation, this effort provides impressive detail and depth. The colors are also accurate, bringing across suburban greens and reds vividly.

The disc's Dolby Digital 2.0 track is clear and effective. No problems here, but it's nothing to get excited about. The film's music comes across just fine.

Chief among the special features is a 17-minute Mike Mills short film titled Deformer. This is a documentary that gives a peek at the life of Ed Templeton, a talented skateboarder in Huntington Beach, California. It's an experimental piece that plays awkwardly with film-school techniques, but it's not afraid to portray the dude's life, bluntly showing the subject nude (and aroused) and acting as a forum for his ideas about exploiting young girls. We also learn about his artwork, and we see a lot of his nude model. An undercurrent of the short film is the young skateboarders and punkers around him who are into smoking, drinking, and getting wasted. The video quality is a drab, grainy 1.33:1 presentation.

You also get a series of Palm Pictures Previews.

Paperboys is a mildly entertaining and somewhat depressing look at some young boys in Minnesota. You might prefer Mills' edgier short film Deformer to the feature attraction. The DVD presentation is fair, with below-average image and extras. I would like to have heard something from Mills.