"Five Time Champion" Is Berndt Mader's Coming-of-Age Story "Five Time Champion," written and directed by Berndt Mader, is a kind of indie Every Film. Quiet, mostly well observed, a bit quirky, regionally distinct (it takes place in Texas) and aware of human complexity, it's also a little pat and a little dramatically underpowered. Sex and sexual arrangements preoccupy the 14-year-old hero, Julius (Ryan Akin), and the movie too, though not in a prurient way. Julius has a knack for science - he studies how worms regenerate asexually - but he's no nerd. When we first meet him, he's making out with his girlfriend in a field. His mother (a sympathetic Dana Wheeler-Nicholson), a taxidermist with a struggling business, has a rich, goofy fiancé and also a studly young admirer (Justin Arnold). And Julius knows that his grandfather sneaks off to care for a dying former lover. Mr. Mader gets some nice, unforced performances, especially from Ms. Wheeler-Nicholson, Mr. Arnold and Betty Buckley as Julius's grandmother, who must deal with her not quite philandering but not quite present husband. The movie's center, though, doesn't quite hold. Mr. Akin is understated as Julius, but the character often seems like less than the sum of Mr. Mader's intentions. Deliberately small-scale, "Five Time Champion" has tough-minded moments but too often veers toward the sweet and even the treacly. This is a movie with more than its fair share of "life is like that" musings. It's pleasant enough, but too careful to be very involving.