One of the ballsiest young figures in film today, writer-director Jon Watts broke onto the scene in 2010 when he, with frequent writing partner Christopher Ford, put a trailer online claiming to have been directed by Eli Roth. When it made its way to Roth, he was impressed with their gall and their story concept (a man puts on a clown suit that won’t come off, and steadily goes insane), and agreed to produce it for real. In 2014, Clown was released, and though its reception was decidedly mixed, it was notable for its willingness to put young children in graphic, mortal peril. Not many movie monsters rip nine-year-olds limb from limb.

Watts’s second feature, Cop Car, co-written with Ford, is also about preteens in peril. Two nine-year-olds, Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford), declare their independence and run away from home, quickly stumbling upon the patrol car of the local sheriff, a shady sort named Kretzer (Kevin Bacon). A complex, dark backstory is hinted at, but true to the movie’s parable-like nature, it doesn’t fill in any of the details. Viewers can either be annoyed at the lack of explanation of why certain items are in the trunk of the titular cop car, or they can accept that the movie is a more of a fable than a full-on thriller.

The early scenes of the boys wandering the Coloradan plains, jamming sticks in snake holes so the infernal serpents can’t get out, and simply reciting curse words for fun are some of the more realistic recent depictions of what little kids are actually like. They aren’t precocious or sullen. They merrily follow preteen logic—they panic after tossing a tiny rock at the police car, because the rock has their fingerprints on it, of course. Travis, the leader, boldly says the F-word, while Harrison refuses, because that is the worst swear word. They badly want to be tough and independent, and they are, but the reality of their childish limitations always pops up.

Though not much happens, and there are only a handful of speaking roles, Cop Car feels big and full. It is rich with atmosphere, a variety of tones, skillful characterizations, and a sense of place. There’s a real focus on the full, unglamorous realities of performing demanding and challenging tasks, like an extended scene (that must have been a headache to film) where Sheriff Kretzer uses an improvised shoelace noose to break into a car. There’s a sort of Cormac McCarthy-esque quality to the fidelity of the depictions of what goes into performing the concrete, basic undertakings needed to advance the plot. It draws out the fullness of minor chores that most films would gloss through, making Cop Car feel denser than it is.

It takes place in a single day, the tone shifting with the lightness of the morning and the approaching dusk. The Colorado plains and lonely roadways are photographed beautifully, evoking a sense of wide open spaces and the exciting, dangerous possibilities that come with them. Aside from Sheriff Kretzer’s early 2000s-style flip phone, the film could have been set at almost any time in the past 50 years: the kids never use smartphones or go online or discuss pop culture. All they talk about are their misguided ideas about what the adult world is like—quintessential little kid conversations.

In its long, climactic sequence, when the five major players (including Shea Whigham as a half-menacing, half-goofy wildcard, and Camryn Manheim as a passerby who notices that a cop car is being wildly driven by two boys), the film becomes a Western-style standoff, Wile E. Coyote cartoon, and disturbing child kidnapping story all at once.

It deftly balances idyllic boyhood exploits, nearly cartoonish hijinks, pitch-dark violence, and grisly threats, earning its R rating. There are more than a couple of moments so uncomfortably tense, yet fundamentally silly, that viewers have little recourse beyond nervous laughter.

Cop Car is an accomplished blending of coming-of-age stories like The Goonies and Stand by Me, noir like Blood Simple, and showdown pictures such as 3:10 to Yuma and Steven Spielberg’s Duel. But it is more than the sum of its influences, and you’ll be completely invested in Travis and Harrison’s fates when the sun starts to set, bringing the dark realities of the adult world crashing down on them.