Unlike the MPAA we do not assign
one
inscrutable rating based on age, but 3 objective ratings for SEX/NUDITY, VIOLENCE/GORE
and PROFANITY on a scale of 0 to 10, from lowest to highest,
depending on quantity and context.
A sister and brother are adopted by a neighbor when their
parents die in a car accident. However, their new guardians are actually after the
children's $4 million trust. With Leelee Sobieski, Diane Lane, Stellan Skarsgard, Trevor
Morgan and Bruce Dern. [1:46]
SEX/NUDITY 4 - There are a few scenes of a man making what seem to be
inappropriate sexual advances toward a young woman: A man reaches toward a young woman to
buckle her seat belt, a man touches a young woman's shoulder, a young woman wears a bikini
(it reveals cleavage) and a man admires her figure, a young woman undresses to her bra and
shorts and she senses someone is watching her, and a man watches a young woman as she does
her homework. A man and woman kiss (shown on a video). A woman wears a very tight and very
low-cut top which exposes a lot of cleavage. Young women (16-year-olds) are shown
throughout the movie in tight, figure- and cleavage-revealing outfits. We see a bare
chested man.
VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - A young woman in a blood stained dress screams and runs
down a hall trying to get away from a man wearing a mask and carrying a machete-like
weapon. The masked man swings the machete and nearly hits her, she backs into a blood
soaked corpse and screams and the masked man punches through a window behind her and grabs
her (these are scenes from a movie that a group of young women are watching). High school
students watch a driver's education film which shows gruesome scenes of bloody corpses
after traffic accidents. A man shoves another man into a man holding a knife; he is
stabbed in the abdomen and falls to the ground. A young woman drives a car toward a man
standing in a road, hits him, sends him flying up into the windshield and he rolls back
onto the road. A young woman wakes up to find a dead woman in her bed; the woman is tinged
blue with her eyes open and milky. A dead man is shown twisted and bloody at the scene of
a car accident, and a bloody sheet is pulled over a corpse. A young woman runs away from a
man who grabs her, hits her in the face, drags her by the feet across a floor, pins her
down, and a woman gives her an injection which knocks her out. A car without brakes speeds
down a winding road ramming into the back of another car, pushing it into an oncoming
truck (the car explodes into dust) and the first car flies through a cement barricade and
over an embankment. A man grabs a boy and a young woman by the hair and tosses them down a
basement staircase. A man is dragged out of his house, taped around the wrists and mouth
and shoved into a car. There are several flashes of a car accident with the occupants of
the car screaming and the car flying off a cliff (a young woman imagines what must have
happened). A very bloody and scratched up man limps toward a car. A man is slammed against
a window and we see his face pressed against the glass from the outside (he's being
threatened by two men), a man punches a police officer in the face, a young woman hits a
man in the head with a dish, a young woman kicks a man in the crotch, a woman bangs her
head against a wall in frustration, and a young woman spits in a man's face. A man breaks
a telephone and a glass sending shrapnel across the room. A man drives recklessly swerving
on a wet road and almost runs head on into oncoming traffic, and a young woman drives
recklessly swerving on a wet road and running a red light almost getting hit by a truck. A
woman injects herself (off-screen) with a drug and we see her stumbling toward some
stairs. A couple of tense scenes show a young woman sneaking into a man and woman's
bedroom and while trying to take their car keys drops them and wakes the man, a boy takes
some keys from under a sleeping man's hand, a young woman and a boy hide under a bed. A
man and woman argue bitterly. Two police officers tell a young woman that her parents have
been killed in a car accident, whereupon she collapses.
the review continues below...
PROFANITY 4 - 9 scatological terms, 12 mild obscenities, 2 religious
profanities, 1 religious exclamation. [profanity glossary]
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Death of parents, stealing, lying to your parents,
fantasies, revenge, spying, eavesdropping, siblings, civil liberties, murder, trust.
MESSAGE - To see what is the most obvious is sometimes the most difficult
thing.
(Note: Drug and alcohol use: A woman is shown to be addicted to prescription drugs
and we see her doped up several times. A man is shown drinking alcohol frequently. A young
woman is drugged and is shown sleeping for a long time. A woman gives a young woman a pill
to relieve menstrual cramps and we see her in a state of euphoria. A group of young women
are seen smoking.)
A CAVEAT: We've gone through several editorial changes since we
started covering films in 1992 and some of our early standards were
not as stringent as they are now. We therefore need to revisit many
older reviews, especially those written prior to 1998 or so; please
keep this in mind if you're consulting a review from that period.
While we plan to revisit and correct older reviews our resources are
limited and it is a slow, time-consuming process.
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