Kangaroo Jack

This topic contains:

• details about Kangaroo Jack's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Kangaroo Jack completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 10 April 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 Kangaroo Jack contains the following information:

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

A synopsis of the story

Kangaroo Jack is an adventure comedy set mainly in outback Australia. The film centres on two best friends Charlie Carbone and Louis Fucci. In the opening scenes of the film, Louis entices Charlie to help him by driving a truckload of stolen TVs across Brooklyn. However, all does not go well, and the two find themselves speeding across Brooklyn pursued by the majority of Brooklyn’s police force. Unwittingly, Charlie and Louis lead the police to a warehouse full of stolen property owned by Charlie’s stepfather mob boss Sal Maggio. In an effort to redeem themselves, Charlie and Louis agree to take a package (containing 50,000 dollars) to a mysterious Mr. Smith in remote outback Australia.

On arrival in Australia, Charlie and Louis hire a car and head off across the outback to find Mr. Smith. While travelling the pair hit a rather large red kangaroo, and thinking that the kangaroo is dead, Louis decides to dress the roo in his lucky red jacket and take a few snap shots for back home. Just as they start snapping away, the roo springs to life and bounds across the desert wearing Louis’s lucky jacket with the $50,000 stuffed in the pockets.

After surviving a plane crash and a violent desert storm while attempting to catch the wily kangaroo, the pair decided to enlist the assistance of Jessie, an American wildlife conservationist to capture the roo and retrieve Louis’s lucky jacket. After tracking the roo on camel back for several days the trio almost look like catching it when Mr. Smith arrives on the scene threatening to kill all unless he receives his $50,000. To further complicate the situation, associates from Brooklyn arrive with a similar intent to that of Mr. Smith. It is finally revealed to Charlie that the $50,000 was for Mr. Smith to kill Charlie and Louis. A fight erupts and the trio escapes on camel with the “bad guys” in close pursuit. After a chase across the desert, the trio finally become cornered on a cliff. Just as Charlie’s time looks up, the police arrive in a helicopter to save the day, and Louis saves the money.

Use of violence

The violence in Kangaroo Jack appears to be an everyday event in the lives of Charlie and Louis, and is portrayed as necessary for survival. All of the violence and intimidation is performed by well groomed, young, athletic males wearing expensive suits. The victims of violence are all males with the exception of the heroine and a female bar attendant who is gagged and tied up. The heroine of the movie relies on her intelligence rather than violence, but tends to take a back seat when the situation gets sticky.

The violence appeared to have little or no real life consequences. No one was seriously hurt, whether they were involved in a plane crash, car crash, kicked by a kangaroo, sand storm, gun fire, or punched in the stomach or face, with the good guys always managing to either escape, or gain the upper hand.

The violence was mainly presented in a slapstick manner. For example, after being pushed out of a fast moving car, the victim would get up dust the dirt off their hat and carry on with life, without so much as a scratch or bruise. The use of violent language was at times placed in a comical context with lines such as, “I’ll chop you into snags and feed you to the crocs”.

Not all of the characters were presented in a comical manner, Charlie’s stepfather, Sal Maggio, had a realistic, intimidating and threatening manner.

Material that may scare children

Children under the age of seven years are capable of believing phenomena to be both real and pretend at the same time. While they may interpret the violence presented in Kangaroo Jack as comical, they may paradoxically find Kangaroo Jack scary and threatening in a real life manner.

Under seven

Children under the age of seven years may be scared by the following images presented in the film:

• fast car chases involving numerous collisions
• a plane crash
• Louis being blown away in a sand storm
• Charlie being kicked in the chest by a large red kangaroo
• guns being shoved in to peoples faces
• guns being fired from cars at Charlie and Co
• guns being fired at police helicopters
• a knife held at the throat of the film’s heroine
• a women being bound and gagged
• people thrown from moving cars
• people being punched in the face and the stomach
• heavy handed threats of extortion and intimidation
• people being knocked unconscious
• a fight involving knifes, throat strangling, pistol wiping, pots and pans being thrown at moving vehicles

Children between the ages of eight and twelve

Children of this age would probably see the violence presented in Kangaroo Jack as comical. However, they may still be fearful of, or negatively influenced by the violence presented in Kangaroo Jack.

Early adolescence

Children of this age would realise that the violence presented in the film was not real.

Sexual references

Other than some crude gestures by Louis when describing Jessie to Charlie, sexual references were non-existent.

Nudity and sexual activity

The film has only one scene involving sexual activity. This involved Charlie and Jessie taking a swim together in a billabong, both were wearing their underwear with Charlie’s bare chest the only visible piece of flesh; the scene involved the couple kissing twice.

There was a very short scene involving Charlie being stripped searched in the airport showing Charlie’s naked upper torso.

Use of substances

There was a scene in an outback pub involving a drinking competition where a local man drinks himself into a paralytic stupor and passes out. The act was presented as amusing, and the actions of the drunk made to appear heroic with Charlie amazed and inspired by the ability of the man to drink copious amounts of alcohol. Further, here was no mention of the negative consequences associated with drinking large amounts of alcohol.

Coarse language

There was no use of coarse language presented in Kangaroo Jack. There were, however, a number of putdowns, and some minor language, for example: damn, degenerate moron, no shit, stupid, screwed up, bloody roo, crazy ass white boy.

There was some toilet humour involving Charlie and Louis in a toilet cubicle where the listener was deliberately made to gain the wrong idea of what was happening inside.

The movie's message

The two main take-home message presented in Kangaroo Jack is that good defeats evil and the bad guys go to jail.

Values that parents may wish to encourage include:

• the value and meaning of friendship and loyalty
• endurance through adversity.

Values that parents may wish to discourage include that:

• the use of violence and deception to gain goals is acceptable and rewarding
• violence does not cause injury
• use of violence goes unanswered, or unpunished
• driving in a reckless and dangerous manner has no real life consequences
• drinking excessively is acceptable and desirable
• villains/criminals are only male
• life is dominated by males.

Overall comments

In terms of enjoyment for adults, both the plot and acting are a little on the thin side, and the humour at time is crude rather than clever. The computer-generated image of kangaroos giving extraordinary performances are the real highlight of the film; and is very funny.

While younger children would find the computer generated images of yoyo playing, rap dancing kangaroos and the toilet humour very appealing, the violence presented throughout the film makes Kangaroo Jack the film unsuitable for children under the age of eight years. Further, the adult themes presented throughout the film would have little meaning and be of little interest to younger children.

The almost completely male dominated cast targets the male audience, and may present an unrealistic perspective of gender equity to an adolescent audience.