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.
Ang Lee's Civil War drama about young Southern men who join the
"bushwhackers," a rag-tag civilian guerrilla unit, after
their town is destroyed by Union soldiers. With Skeet Ulrich,
Tobey Maguire, Jewel Kilcher, Jeffrey Wright, Simon Baker-Denny,
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, James Caviezel, Tom Guiry, Tom Wilkinson,
Jonathan Brandis, Matthew Faber, Stephen Mailer, John Ales, Zach
Grenier and Margo Martindale. [2:18]
SEX/NUDITY 3 - Mild sexual innuendo and a couple of
kisses. In two scenes we see most of a woman's breast as she
breastfeeds. It's implied that a couple has intercourse in two
different scenes: in one a woman undresses a man, removes her slip
and then they fall onto a bed and kiss (only their bare shoulders
are visible); in the other, we see a woman in her undershirt,
post-coitus.
VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - Several shoot-outs and battles scenes
in which lots and lots of men are shot, sometimes at very close
range and sometimes in close-up (we see a man shot through the
cheek, another shot in the throat, another shot in the side and
another's pinky is shot off); we often see blood spray from the
wounds. In one extended scene, hundreds of soldiers on horses
stampede into a town, shooting many men, burning buildings and
looting stores. Afterwards, we see corpses strewn throughout the
streets and piled in large stacks. We see a man's extremely
bloody, ripped-to-shreds arm after he's been shot; in a later,
excruciating to watch scene, we see an aerial view of someone
beginning to saw off his bloody arm (he eventually dies). Some
human scalps are thrown onto a table. A horse rolls over a man
who's been shot. A man is thrown through a second-story window of
a building (we see him hanging onto the ledge), several men are
tied to a post (their faces are bruised and cut) and a man kicks
another off a chair. We see several buildings engulfed in flames.
Lots of threatening with guns.
the review continues below...
PROFANITY 4 - An anatomical reference, several
scatological references, lots of mild obscenities, some insults
and lots of racial epithets. [profanity glossary]
DISCUSSION TOPICS - The Civil War, The Old South,
bushwackers, militias, murder, massacres, loyalty, friendship,
separation from loved ones, slavery, racism, marriage.
MESSAGE - War is fueled by vengeance and emotion rather
than rational thought.
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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