Rebound

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Rebound's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Reboundcompleted by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 21 April 2006.

Overall comments and recommendations

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 Rebound contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• 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

This retelling of the story focuses on disgraced College basketball coach, Roy McCormick and his trials in taking a hapless Middle School team, the Smelters, to the State Finals.

Roy McCormick (Martin Lawrence) is a highly successful, but highly strung College basketball coach. At one of his Ohio team’s games, Roy is enraged by a referee’s decision and responds by having a tantrum. In the process, he accidentally kills the opposing team’s mascot (a bird). The dead bird is not shown, but feathers are seen to be flying, the bird handler is upset and the crowd ‘boos’ Roy. After this incident he is suspended from his job. His agent, Tim Fink (Breckin Meyer) believes that Roy can regain favour with the Ohio team management, if he takes up an offer to coach Mount Vernon Middle School’s hapless basketball team and prove he can behave well.

When Coach Roy steps up to coach the team, he realises he has his work cut out for him. Mt Vernon’s basketball team, the Smelters, haven’t won a game since 1989. Team players don’t communicate with each other and play selfishly, so their chances of every making the State Finals are remote. While trying to maintain his reputation as a coach and make a team of his players, Roy begins to enjoy his role as mentor for his young protégés and learns that winning isn’t everything. The Smelters gradually turn their season around and have to use their newly found skills and team spirit to carry them to the elusive State finals.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

No themes of concern.

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 some low level violence in this movie, mostly used for comic effect, including:

• During basketball drills there are a number of incidents when the boys accidentally throw the ball into each other’s heads, groins, and bodies
• The ball hits Coach Roy in the face, causing him to have a blood nose
• Big Mac (the tough girl of the team) is shown to bully students and opposing team members throughout the movie. She trips, pushes, shoves, punches and chases down students.

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.

Although the scene in which Roy accidentally kills the opposing team’s bird is depicted in a comic light, it could still distress some children under the age of eight.

Aged 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.

There is nothing in this movie that would scare or disturb children over the age of eight.

Product placement

When the Smelters have a victory near the end of the movie, the coach is doused with water from a bucket bearing the Gatorade label.

Sexual references

None. Coach Roy is shown to admire the mother of one of his players and makes some appreciative noises, but their relationship culminates in a kiss only.

Nudity and sexual activity

None

Use of substances

None

Coarse language

The film contains infrequent low level coarse language, including:

• dang
• heck
• damn.

The movie's message

Rebound is family-friendly movie using the well-worn themes of the ‘fish out of water’ and the underdog triumphing. Younger audiences will enjoy the success that the Smelters increasingly experience and the physical comedy of their play. Adults may find the storyline and characterisations somewhat pedestrian and very familiar, but the Smelters themselves are engaging and their victories are enjoyable.

The main messages from this movie are that teamwork can be more successful than talent and that winning isn’t everything—it’s how you play the game.

Values parents may wish to encourage include:

• Endurance through adversity
• Believing in yourself
• Teamwork
• Being respectful of people in authority
• That power is about being respected, not through violence or fear.

This movie could give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as having tantrums or using violence when things don’t go your way, bullying, name-calling, teasing and being disrespectful to people in authority. Some parents may wish to discuss with their children a scene in which a visiting reverend prays for misfortune and injury to befall the Smelters’ opposing team.