Pink Panther

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Pink Panther's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Pink Panther completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 5 March 2006.

Overall comments and recommendations

Steve Martin renders an excellent performance as the bumbling, inept, Inspector Clouseau. He gives his own interpretation to the character making him personable and very funny. The Pink Panther will appeal to older children and adults, but parental guidance may be needed for young children.

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 Pink Panther contains the following information:

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

A synopsis of the story

Yves Glaunt, a famous soccer coach, is murdered by a poison dart while celebrating the win by France and his Pink Panther diamond ring is stolen. Chief Inspector Dreyfuss (Kevin Kline) is determined to win the prestigious Medal of Honour, having been nominated seven times previously and been so far unsuccessful. He devises a plot which will help him achieve his great desire, which is to hire the most inept, useless detective in France to officially oversee the case, while Dreyfuss, with his elite team, will work behind the scenes to crack the case. Thus Clouseau (Steve Martin) is brought into the case assisted by the reliable Detective Ponton, (Jean Reno), who has to report back to Dreyfuss. Clouseau is also ably assisted by his beautiful secretary Nicole (Emily Mortimer).

Clouseau has the unfortunate ability to create havoc wherever he goes and remain quite oblivious to it. This gets him into some very dire and funny predicaments. His quest to catch the murderer leads him to America in pursuit of Glaunt's girlfriend (Beyonce Knowles). In order to blend in, Clouseau has voice training to learn American English, but has trouble doing this and ends up being sent back in shame to France where he's taken off the case. Clouseau however, has other ideas.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is a lot of slapstick, cartoon violence, including:

• an old woman gets bowled over by Clouseau's blue light
• Clouseau opens his car door into a cyclist knocking him off his bike
• Clouseau helps an old man in a wheelchair, resulting in the wheelchair rolling backwards and crashing
• Clouseau knocks a huge globe off its stand, which then rolls out of the room, down a staircase, out onto the road and bowls over a large group of cyclists
• Clouseau demonstrates the use of a torture instrument to a suspect, connects the wires (presumably) to his testicles, which causes him to scream in pain. His trousers continue to smoke for quite some time.
• Clouseau gets his finger shut heavily in a door – he hangs there for a while.
• Clouseau tries to pull the Chief Inspector's face off, thinking it's a mask.
• Chief Inspector gets his coat caught in Clouseau's car and is dragged along behind it for some time. He is later shown bandaged and badly injured in hospital. Clouseau makes matters worse trying to lower the bed – he climbs all over the injured inspector and accidentally lets the brake off the bed which goes flying out of the hospital window into the canal.

Violent scenes that are not particularly funny include:

• Glaunt is killed by the poison dart
• Bizu, one of the players is shot dead.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

The above mentioned violent scenes, particularly the murders of Glaunt and Bizu could disturb very young children.

Over the age of eight

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Most children over the age of eight would be ok to view this movie without parental guidance, depending on the individual child and parents' assessment of the content.

Product placement

McDonalds is featured in the movie.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references, including:

• As Clouseau helps Nicole down from a ladder, she sits facing him on his shoulders with his face buried in her crotch.
• Clouseau's face is in Nicole's bosom on another occasion.
• Nicole is choking so Clouseau grabs her from behind. Puton walks in the room and it looks as though they could be having sex.
• Clouseau and Puton have to share a double bed in a motel room and they discuss the women in their lives.
• Beyonce wears quite low cut dresses and uses her sexuality to charm Clouseau.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is no nudity or sexual activity.

Use of substances

There is no use of substances.

Coarse language

There is occasional use of the word bastard.

The movie's message

This is a very light film with no real message apart from the fact that it doesn't pay to be devious.

This movie could give parents the opportunity to point out to their children that the violence in the movie used to comedic effect, would actually hurt in real life. They could also discuss the issues around using sexuality to gain advantage.