“You better run, you better take cover”, is how the song Down Under by Men at Work goes, and it’s quite a fitting beginning – or pre-warning
Kangaroo Jack (2003)
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Reviews Counted:110
Fresh:9
Rotten:101
Average Rating:3.3/10
Consensus: The humor is gratingly dumb, and Kangaroo Jack contains too much violence and sexual innuendo for a family movie.
Rated: PG [See Full Rating] for language, crude humor, sensuality and violence
Runtime: 89 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Jan 17, 2003 Wide
Box Office: $66,734,992
Synopsis:
Best friends Charlie Carbone [JERRY O’CONNELL] and Louis Fucci [ANTHONY ANDERSON] are both struggling to get ahead in life – but their approaches couldn’t be more different.
Louis is an eternal...
Best friends Charlie Carbone [JERRY O’CONNELL] and Louis Fucci [ANTHONY ANDERSON] are both struggling to get ahead in life – but their approaches couldn’t be more different.
Louis is an eternal optimist, which is a good thing considering he’s also a magnet for bad luck. Ever since he saved Charlie’s life 20 years ago, Louis has embroiled them in a series of shady get-rich-quick schemes, which has only compounded Charlie’s reputation as the ultimate loser in the eyes of his intimidating stepfather, mob boss Sal Maggio [CHRISTOPHER WALKEN].
More skeptical and low-profile than Louis, Charlie just wants to play by the rules, meet the right girl and make a success of his new business, which is tough with Sal skimming all the profits. But when Louis recruits Charlie to help him escort a truckload of stolen TVs across town, they inadvertently lead police straight to Sal’s warehouse, jam-packed with hot property.
Just when it looks like the guys might wind up sleeping with the fishes, Sal decides to give Charlie and his bumbling sidekick one last chance for redemption. All they have to do is deliver $50,000 cash to one of Sal’s associates in a remote outpost …the Australian Outback.
Goodbye Brooklyn, G’day Sydney!
After an adventurous plane flight and a scary brush with Customs, Charlie and Louis find themselves barrelling down a dusty road in the Aussie wilderness with the 50 grand stuffed in Louis’ lucky red jacket. Looks like things are finally starting to go their way when…THUMP! Their jeep hits a large kangaroo.
As the guys try in vain to revive the lifeless roo, they realize he resembles their buddy “Jackie Legs” back home in Brooklyn. Louis impulsively insists on dressing “Jackie” in his lucky red jacket and snapping a few photos.
Problem is…this kangaroo has a plan of his own.
Before Charlie and Louis can react, the feisty beast springs to life and bounces off across the desert at lightning speed wearing what has just become the most valuable jacket in Australia. To their horror, the kangaroo disappears into the vast scrubland, leaving them with no money, no car and no clue.
Enlisting the aid of Jessie [ESTELLA WARREN], a resourceful American wildlife conservationist, along with a drunken bush pilot and a herd of the most ill-mannered camels that ever lived, Charlie and Louis attempt to track the wily kangaroo across the dense Outback, capture him and retrieve the cash before Sal’s henchmen send them “down under”…permanently.
Starring: Jerry O'Connell, Anthony Anderson, Christopher Walken, Estella Warren
Starring: Jerry O'Connell, Anthony Anderson, Christopher Walken, Estella Warren, Dyan Cannon, Marton Csokas, Michael Shannon
Director: David McNally
Director: David McNally
Screenwriter: Steve Bing, Scott Rosenberg
Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer
Composer: Trevor Rabin
Studio: Warner Bros.
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Reviews for Kangaroo Jack
There's a lot of typical screw-ups that can be seen with Hollywood trying to portray Australia on-screen.
Relentlessly gimmicky as it is needlessly tepid, McNally's doltish narrative doesn't deliver the inspired slapstick intended to be charming in this goofy and grating vehicle.
The kids might love it, and any chance to soak up Australian beauty is welcomed, but there just isn’t enough hop in the ’roo to hold appeal for very long.
A twisted and irresponsible so-called kids' film with leering sex gags and bursts of violence.
My four-year-old nephew can write his own name. This puts him several steps above the folks who wrote the screenplay for Kangaroo Jack.
Put it on a double bill with 1978's boxing kangaroo monstrocity Matilda and you've got yourself an evening of pure hell.
The characters kept stopping and talking, reminding me that they had no depth, likeability, or intelligence.
Bruckheimer has thrown hundreds of millions of dollars at lousy movies before, but who would have guessed that even he would one day bankroll a project unworthy of an imaginary kangaroo's talents?
`Kangaroo Jack' isn't half as stupid as it looks -- which is to say it has a slight chance of escaping the list of the worst movies of 2003.
Is it great? No. But it's a good movie for the whole family to lighten up a bit.
If it sounds bad, that's because it is, but reading about it can't even come close to the experience of actually watching it.
... Has no potential to be anything other than a bad movie. It really has no reason to exist ... Where could you go with this premise?
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has an unparalleled knack for assembling Z-grade talent, particularly when operating in family-fun mode.
This is a a simple-minded comedy of errors in which a lot of errors are made, but few of them are truly comedic.
The movie gives us frat-house-style sexual humor, flatulence jokes about camels, and a romantic subplot apparently intended to woo the female half of the audience.
McNally's direction has all the subtlety one has come to expect from those helmers toiling in the House of Bruckheimer.
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
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