Mr Deeds

This topic contains:

• details about Mr Deeds’classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Mr Deeds completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 27 September 2002.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Mr Deeds contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• nudity, sexual references, substance use, coarse language
• the movie’s message
• overall comments.

A synopsis of the story

Longfellow Deeds is the very popular local pizza shop owner in the small town of Mandrake Falls. He moonlights as a bad poet trying to write verses for Hallmark cards. He is a regular ‘nice’ guy who talks to old ladies, helps old men across the street and visits people in prison; nevertheless he is no ‘push over’. Unbeknown to him, he has a very rich uncle, Preston Blake, who dies climbing Mt Everest and leaves Deeds forty billion dollars.

Blake was the head of an extensive corporation, the heads of which are very keen to maintain control and keep Deeds out of the picture. They bring Deeds to New York to sign the documents which will hand control of the company back to Chuck Cedar, the present manager. Deeds is quite unaffected by the wealth and all the trappings that go with it and continues to be the same nice, simple, friendly guy. Cedar and his cohorts mistake Deeds’ childlikeness as stupidity and set out to make him look like a fool. They have an unwitting accomplice in the form of Babe Bennett a local reporter for a news station who is trying to get the ‘goss’ on Deeds. She masquerades as Pam Dawson a ‘nice’ girl from a small town. She manages to win Deeds’ heart and loses hers at the same time.

Deeds is heartbroken when he discovers the deception and decides to give his fortune away to charity. He also signs away his shareholding in the company. Cedar then goes about breaking up the company which will benefit all of the shareholders but it means putting thousands of people out of work. When Deeds hears about this, he buys back a share in the company and persuades the other shareholders not to sell. Bennett begs for forgiveness and all ends well between her and Deeds.

Use of violence

There is quite a bit of violence in this film – mainly cartoon style and usually set in a comic context:

• Deeds makes the valet (Emillio) hit his foot with a poker to prove he has no feeling in it. Emillio does this with great vigour and repeatedly stabs the foot with the poker
• Deeds throws cats out of a burning apartment. They all land on the trampoline and bounce off again to be caught safely by someone—one is caught by a dog. The last cat to be thrown out (there are 7) is on fire and lands in a bucket of water.
• Deeds jumps with woman out of the apartment and lands on top of her in a suggestive position
• Deeds plays tennis with Chuck and hits the ball so hard it knocks Chuck out; this is done several times.

Other violent scenes include:

• Deeds punches several men in a restaurant for making fun of him.
• Deeds rescues Babe who’s pretending to be robbed by her friend Marty. Deeds chases Marty, knocks him down and repeatedly punches him
• Babe gets into a fight with Jan, a Mandrake Falls woman. They kick and fight each other very aggressively. Jan threatens to cut her into eight pieces.

Material that may scare children

Under seven

There are quite a lot of scenes that could frighten younger children including:

• Preston Blake is shown at the start of the film climbing Mt. Everest. He goes up when everyone else goes down and dies in his attempt. He is shown frozen in a stiff climbing position.
• Emillio stabbing the poker into Deeds’ foot.
• Deeds opens the coffin at the funeral and Blake springs up into sitting position. Deeds tries to stuff him back into the coffin and breaks Blake’s hand in the process.
• The cats being thrown out of the window especially the cat on fire.
• Footballer’s father takes his belt off to belt him for using “bad language in front of the ladies”.
• Old man pulls his knee out of its socket and twists it.
• Babe falls through thin ice and nearly drowns; Deeds rescues her.
• Babe and Jan fighting.

Seven to twelve years

Most of the violence in this film is cartoon style however a lot of it is over the top and could upset children in this age group such as when Deeds is punching Marty. Also in the scene where Babe falls through the ice, she is in real danger and this could upset younger children in this age group.

Nudity, sexual references, substance use, coarse language

Marty is seen showering and his naked backside is shown.

There are some verbal sexual references in this film including:

• A line of one of Deeds’ poems says I will still love you when “your bosoms sag down to the floor”.
• An old man and a younger girl are shown dancing very seductively
• The news station manager, an Aussie, laughs at the idea of Babe being a virgin.
• A man talks about squeezing his girlfriend’s “big false boobs”.

There is a fair amount of drinking of alcohol and smoking in the film. Mr Deeds goes out with John McEnroe one night on the town and they get very drunk. They throw eggs at cars. The next day Deeds has a hangover.

The following words are used quite frequently:

• shit
• bullshit

The word ‘fucking’ is obviously said but not heard. The ‘finger’ is given a couple of times.

The movie’s message

The main themes of this film are that there are more important things in life than money and that it is important to maintain the ‘child within’.

Values that parents may wish to encourage include:

• kindness
• generosity
• selflessness
• community spirit
• openness
• honesty.

Values that parents may wish to discourage include:

• punching people out who don’t agree with you
• deceitfulness.

Overall comments

This is a 2002 version of the original film Mr Deeds Goes to Town, and contains excessive violence, sexual reference and vulgarity. Adam Sandler plays the part of the simple, small town bloke very well. The rags to riches story is unusual in that the wealth and all the trappings don’t affect Mr Deeds at all. However it seems contradictory that the nice Mr Deeds can pull such a punch and knock blokes out cold. This could have been a good, moral story but the antics of Sandler are made to just get a laugh. Lightly entertaining.

Due to the content of the film it is really only suitable for children over the age of 15 as the rating suggests.