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Smoke Signals | 1998 | PG-13 | - 1.3.3

When a young man's estranged father dies, he and his tag-along friend leave their Coeur D'Alene Indian reservation and head to Arizona to collect the father's ashes. Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Gary Farmer, Tantoo Cardinal, Monica Mojica, Irene Bedard, Suzy Song and Cody Lightning co-star.

SEX/NUDITY 1 - There are no sex scenes or nudity. Only a sexual reference: A woman tells a man she slept with a friend's boyfriend while she was in college.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - In several flashbacks, we see a house engulfed in flames and a baby thrown (and caught) from a second-floor window; we learn that the baby's parents died in the fire. A woman sets fire to a vacant trailer. A man slaps a woman, a man hits a boy's face and a boy repeatedly punches another boy (his nose is slightly bloody). We briefly see a dead man, but there's no gore; he looks as if he's sleeping. A truck swerves to miss a car stopped in the road and apparently hits an embankment; in the next scene, we see a few people with bloody cuts on their faces and a bloody, unconscious woman.

LANGUAGE 3 - Several anatomical and scatological references and many mild obscenities.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Death of parents, racism, Indian reservations, abandonment, guilt, forgiveness.

MESSAGE - It's easier to forgive someone's wrongdoing if you try to understand the reasons behind the deeds.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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