Charlie and Boots

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Charlie and Boots' classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Charlie and Boots completed by The Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 8 September 2009.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines.

ACCM review

This review of the movie Charlie and Boots 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

Charlie and Boots begins with the tragic and sudden death of Gracie, the beloved wife of Charlie McFarland (Paul Hogan) and mother of “Boots” (Shane Jacobson) and his brother, Tristian.  Charlie is overcome with heartbreak at the loss of his wife of 45 years and shuts himself away from the world.  When Boots comes to visit Charlie a month after his mother has died he is concerned about his father and concocts a plan to help him deal with his grief.

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.

Death of wife/mother, death of a child

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.

None of concern

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 and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

• Charlie’s wife, Gracie, is seen to collapse and die suddenly
• Gracie’s dead body is seen in a coffin at her funeral
• There is a discussion about the death of Boots’ 3 year old son who drowned while being babysat by his grandmother.

Aged eight to thirteen

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 in this age group are also likely to be disturbed by the above-mentioned scenes

Over the age of thirteen

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.

Children in this age group may also be disturbed by some of the above-mentioned scenes

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• Holden
• Masterfoods
• Bundaberg Ginger Beer
• Smiths
• Ford
• Liberty Petrol

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• Charlie and Boots pick up a young hitchhiker, Jess, who says she had a fight with her boyfriend because he asked her to do things that she didn’t want to do
• Charlie talks on radio about catching Boots as a young boy masturbating ‘choking the goose’ and ‘buffing the bazooka’, stating that he was ‘hung like a draft horse’
• There is a sticker seen on a car that says ‘I want your lipstick on my dipstick’
• There are a number of inappropriate jokes shared between Charlie and Boots, many with sexual innuendos

Nudity and sexual activity

None of concern

Use of substances

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

• scenes of adults drinking alcohol in a restaurant

Coarse language

There is frequent coarse language in this movie, including:

• Bloody, dickhead, stupid, hell, balls, shit, fuck, bugger, shut up, Jesus, bullshit, half-cocked, bloody useless, fuck’s sake

The movie's message

Charlie and Boots is a comedy about the relationship between a father and son and the way in which they manage to mend a fractured bond through their shared grief. The main messages from this movie are the importance of family and forgiveness.

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

• loyalty
• reaching out to those you love (particularly in times of despair)

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

• hitchhiking
• being pressured by a boyfriend to do things you don’t want to do
• grief
• communication