Footy Legends

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Footy Legends' classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Footy Legends completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 3 August 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 Footy Legends 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

Luc Vu (Ahn Do) is a young Vietnamese man, living in the Western suburbs of Sydney, who has been down on his luck lately. He is the sole carer for his 11 year old sister Anne (Lisa Saggers) after the recent death of their mother and has recently lost his job in a factory. However, he is bolstered by the support of his former school footy mates, all of whom have their own troubles, and the “get out and fight” mantra of his grandfather, who now lives in a nursing home.

After a series of complaints from Anne’s school about Luc’s care of her, the Department of Community Services (DOCS) becomes involved and a case worker (Claudia Karvan) tells Luc that unless he shows more responsibility and gets a job, DOCS will place Anne in foster care. Luc hits upon the idea of entering the Holden Footy Championship Cup to solve his troubles, as the winners of the competition win a Holden Ute and become models for the next season’s Lowes’ clothing catalogue. He convinces his former team-mates to join his team and they begin training for the competition.

Luc and his friends unexpectedly make their way through the competition, learning lessons about themselves, their friendships and their community, and earning the respect of their families and opposition. However, as the Department’s plan to remove Anne from Luc’s care becomes imminent, he must make the difficult decision between his responsibility for his family and his loyalty to his team.

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.

Family under threat

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 violence in this movie including:

• during the many rugby games shown in this movie, there are a number of rough tackles in which players from both sides appear hurt
  
• in a game against the local garbagemen, Luc is tackled to the ground, and is knocked out
  
• during the Holden competition, Luc’s team-mates get kicked in the head, have their faces pushed into the ground, get scratched in the face and one friend gets taken off the ground on a stretcher after a nasty head clash.

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.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes there is one scene that could disturb children under the age of eight, in which Anne runs away from home and goes to visit her mother’s grave. Luc frantically looks for her and eventually finds her at their mother’s grave, but unwell after an asthma attack. The next scene shows them both in a hospital ward with Anne attached to an oxygen mask and an intravenous drip.

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.

It is unlikely that children over the age of eight would be disturbed by anything in this movie.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• Holden
  
• Victoria Bitter beer
  
• Lowes clothing store
  
• Kentucky Fried Chicken

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• in response to a character saying they will be on television, someone asks if they will be in a ‘porno’
  
• a sports announcer says “I love it when you are excited … no more than your wife though”
  
• a sports announcers states that something is “rarer than a virgin rabbit”.

Nudity and sexual activity

None

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

• a number of scenes where spectators are shown to be watching the games in a pub. They are all drinking beer and some are smoking.
  
• Luc is shown to have ‘quiet beer’ with a friend in a pub.
  
• Luc’s friend Boof refers to the fact that he has tried everything “coke, ecstasy” etc in the past.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• bloody
  
• shit
  
• shithouse
  
• piss
  
• pissing
  
• crap
  
• hell
  
• bullshit
  
• Christ’s sake
  
• arse
  
• Jesus Christ
  
• bastard
  
• buggered.

The movie's message

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• friendship
  
• loyalty
  
• taking pride in your community
  
• respecting yourself
  
• never giving up
  
• teamwork.
  

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as name-calling and smoking. Parents may also wish to point out, in respect of the scene in which Boof’s son urinates on a power board, that this is actually a very dangerous thing to do.