Serving Sara

This topic contains:

• details about Serving Sara's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Serving Sara completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on the 4th of March, 2003.

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 Serving Sara contains the following information:

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

A synopsis of the story

Joe Tyler is a cynical, disenfranchised lawyer making a living serving process papers. He has to compete for jobs with his partner Tony who is just as dishonest, cunning and unscrupulous. The firm is given the job of serving divorce papers on Sara Moore by her multi millionaire, ranch owner husband, Roger. Joe is given the task and eventually manages to hand the papers to Sara by devious means. She is devastated to learn that because Roger lives in Texas, Sara is not entitled to any share in the property according to the law of the State. However if she were to have served the papers first on Roger from New York she would then be entitled to fifty percent of his wealth. Thus, with the promise of ten percent of her takings, Sara persuades Joe to tear up the papers and serve Roger with a divorce.

The pursuit is then on to find Roger and hand him the papers. This takes them on a trip across the country and involves sending Tony, who is now trying to reach Sara first, on several wild goose chases. After much mayhem and many adventures they manage to track Roger down and hand him the papers in the nick of time.

Use of violence and material that may scare children

There is nothing particularly scary in this film, however there is some violence:

• Joe is beaten up by tough guys and left with a bloody nose.
• While nursing his broken nose as a passenger on a bus, the bus brakes suddenly causing him to hit his nose again on the seat in front.
• Joe is attacked by a female kick boxer who punches and kicks him and leaves him unconscious.
• A man is tied to a pole and threatened over the loss of a stapler.
• Joe lets an aggressive dog loose onto Tony which attacks him and leaves him scarred and badly scratched.
• Tony gets shot at and has to have lead pellets removed from his backside.

Sexual references, nudity, substance use and coarse language

There are a few sexual references in this film including:

• Sara's jeans get caught in a conveyor belt and Joe has to rip them off to save her, leaving her in skimpy underwear.
• Sara exposes her breasts (seen from behind) to a motel owner to obtain a free room.
• Sara and Joe share a bed.
• Joe is mistaken for a vet and has to 'masturbate' a bull.
• Joe has to insert his arm into the bull's rectum and massage the prostate to obtain semen.
• There is no actual nudity but plenty of skimpy clothing and cleavage.
• Joe smokes and drinks frequently.

There is frequent use of low level coarse language including the words:

• freakin' / friggin'
• arse
• arsehole
• shit
• dick
• crap
• bitch
• goddam
• screw you
• bugger
• banging
• there is also infrequent use of the words God and Jesus.

The movie's message

There is not much of a 'take home' message in this film as it's all about greed and who manages to win the money.

There are really no values in this film that parents might wish to encourage.
Values parents may wish to discourage include:

• lying
• cheating
• greediness
• corruption
• name calling
• disloyalty
• trading sexual favours for goods
  

Overall comments

This film has very little merit and is full of the worse traits of human beings. Sara shows little remorse at the news that her husband wants to divorce her but is devastated when her credit cards are cancelled. Mathew Perry does quite a good job of playing the dispirited, corrupt lawyer and Cedric the Entertainer is quite entertaining as the overbearing boss.

While there is nothing in terms of violence of scary material for parents of younger children to be concerned about, the film offers little in terms of entertainment and enjoyment for for children or adults.