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 terminally-ill boy and a social misfit with a troubled
past become friends and fashion themselves as modern-day knights of King Arthur's
court. With Kieran Culkin, Elden Ratliff, Sharon Stone, Gena Rowlands, Harry Dean Stanton,
Gillian Anderson, James Gandolfini, Douglas Bisset, Joseph Perrino, Dov Tiefenbach,
Michael Colton, Daniel Lee, Eve Crawford, John Bourgeois and Bruce Tubbe. [1:40]
SEX/NUDITY 0 - None.
VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A woman falls backwards as she's trying to get away
from a man; though furniture is blocking most of their bodies, we can tell that he climbs
on top of her and chokes her (we later see her wearing a neck brace). A man covers a
boy's mouth and holds him down on a bed; in a later scene, the man takes the boy to
an apartment and ties him to a chair. Twice, a boy chokes while eating; once, he is
seriously injured and we see him recovering in a hospital bed. A few times a group of boys
chase and taunt two others; in one scene, the two boys are followed by a boy with a knife
(no one is harmed) and in another scene, a boy uses a manhole cover to ward off boys who
are trying to hit him with baseball bats and chains. While running on a sidewalk, boys
shove and knock people down; one boy grabs a woman's purse and puts it down a sewer
drain. A man is chased and tackled by police. A boy using crutches is knocked down by a
basketball that was purposely rolled into him. A boy's feet get stuck in mud as
he's walking into a lake and he's stuck underwater for a few seconds. A boy is
nearly hit by a few cars when he runs across a busy street, a boy crashes a car into a
barrier and a boy flies off his sled into a snowbank (none of the boys is injured). A boy
grabs another and bursts through wallboards to escape the room they're in. A boy
sprays a man in the face with what is supposed to be acid (it apparently is not). A boy
rips a lock out of a door as he opens it quickly and a woman repeatedly hits a vending
machine. A boy gets a tiny bloody cut on his finger when he picks up a shard of glass. A
boy gets upset and falls backward in his chair; he pulls a lamp down with him and it
shatters. A man is briefly seen loading bullets into a gun. Some yelling, scuffling and
shoving. We learn that a boy's father killed his mother and that a boy died.
the review continues below...
PROFANITY 3 - A few anatomical references, a few mild scatological
references, several mild obscenities, some name-calling and a profane finger gesture. [profanity glossary]
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Being social outcasts, bullies, terminal diseases, learning,
friendship, kidnapping, murder, loss of a loved one.
MESSAGE - Sometimes you need another person's support to make you
realize you are capable of doing certain things.
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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