| Kangaroo Jack | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | David McNally |
| Screenplay by | |
| Story by | |
| Produced by | Jerry Bruckheimer |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Peter Menzies Jr. |
| Edited by |
|
| Music by | Trevor Rabin |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures (throughRoadshow Entertainment in Australia[1]) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 89 minutes[2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $60 million[2] |
| Box office | $90.5 million[2] |
Kangaroo Jack is a 2003 Americanbuddyaction comedy film, directed byDavid McNally, and written bySteve Bing andScott Rosenberg. The film tells the story of two childhood friends who get caught up with the mob and are forced to deliver $50,000 to Australia, but things go haywire when the money is lost to a wild kangaroo. It starsJerry O'Connell,Anthony Anderson,Estella Warren,Michael Shannon, andChristopher Walken. The score was composed byTrevor Rabin.
Originally conceived as an R-rated mob comedy entitledDown and Under, negative test screenings led producerJerry Bruckheimer to retool the film into a PG-rated film, heavily re-editing the film and adding scenes of ananthropomorphic kangaroo.
Kangaroo Jack was produced byCastle Rock Entertainment andJerry Bruckheimer Films and released in the United States on January 17, 2003, byWarner Bros. Pictures. The film received negative reviews from critics, and grossed $90 million worldwide against a $60 million budget.
An animateddirect-to-video sequel,Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!, was released in 2004.
In 1982Brooklyn, a boy named Charlie Carbone is about to become the stepson ofcrime boss Salvatore Maggio. The mobster's apprentice Frankie Lombardo tries to drown Charlie, but a boy named Louis Booker saves him, and they become best friends.
Twenty years later, Charlie operates a beauty salon set up by Sal, whose henchmen take 80% of the profits, barely leaving Charlie enough money for maintenance. After Charlie and Louis botch hiding some stolen TVs, which leads to the discovery of Sal's warehouse by the police, Sal gives them one more chance. Under instructions from Frankie, they are to deliver a package to a man named Mr. Smith inCoober Pedy,Australia. Frankie also warns them against opening the package, and provides them with Mr. Smith's number. Unknown to the duo, Sal has cancelled their return trip. Louis opens the package on the plane and finds $50,000 cash.
Arriving in Australia, Charlie and Louis drive to Coober Pedy. Along their way, they accidentally run over ared kangaroo. Louis thinks it is dead and calls the kangaroo “Jackie Legs”, after their friend fromCanarsie. Louis even puts his “lucky” jacket and sunglasses on the kangaroo, posing for photographs as a joke. The kangaroo suddenly regains consciousness, kicks Charlie, and hops away with the $50,000 in the jacket. Charlie and Louis give chase but crash their rental car, and the kangaroo escapes.
At a pub inAlice Springs, Louis calls Mr. Smith, who thinks he and Charlie stole his package and threatens to kill them by feeding them to thecrocodiles. Back in New York, Sal gets a call from Smith complaining that Charlie and Louis have not arrived, then sends Frankie and some henchmen to Australia to investigate. Meanwhile, Charlie and Louis attempt to reclaim the money from the kangaroo by shooting it with a tranquilizer from a plane. The attempt fails when Louis accidentally shoots Blue, the pilot, causing the plane to crash and stranding the duo in the desert. They spend hours wandering in the desert, during which the duo encounter a pack of hungrydingoes and a sand storm, and Charliehallucinates finding a jeep, and they soon meet Jessie, an American woman from the Outback Wildlife Foundation. Charlie, thinking she is a mirage, grabs her breasts and she knocks him out. Charlie then has a nightmare with a speaking and rapping version of the kangaroo, plus two other kangaroos possessing Sal and Louis's voices, who taunt him by calling him "Chicken Blood" repeatedly.
The following day, the three track Jackie Legs to theTodd River, attempting to catch the animal withbolas, but Louis accidentally botches their attempt when he panics afterants crawl up his pants. While waiting for the next opportunity to catch the kangaroo, Charlie begins developing feelings for Jessie. At the crack of dawn the following day, Smith and his henchmen shortly arrive, after following their camel tracks, and capture the trio. Charlie and Louis outsmart them, but find Frankie has tracked them down and is prepared to kill them. Jackie Legs suddenly returns, causing afist fight between Smith's henchmen and Frankie's crew, who outmatch them. The distraction allows Charlie, Louis and Jessie to escape. The duo chases after the kangaroo while being pursued by Frankie and his goons. Louis finally retrieves the money from the kangaroo, and Charlie narrowly saves him from falling off a cliff. Charlie tries to hand the money to Frankie, who angrily declines and reveals that Sal sent them to Australia to pay for their own execution at the hands of Smith. As he is about to shoot Charlie, theAustralian Federal Police force, led by a cop working undercover as an Outback guide, arrives and arrests Frankie, Smith, and their henchmen. Charlie reclaims Louis's jacket from the kangaroo.
One year later, Charlie and Jessie are married and have used Sal's $50,000 to start a line of new hair care products bearing a kangaroo logo, along with Louis. Frankie and his goons have beenimprisoned for life while Sal tried using his high level connections to avoid going to prison; this failed, and he is now awaiting trial. Jackie Legs, now called "Kangaroo Jack", continues to live happily in theOutback. Now able to speak again, Jackie breaks the fourth wall, explaining why the film should end with him since the title of the movie is named after him, and finally closes it with his version ofPorky Pig's famous catchphrase: "That's all, blokes!"
InitiallyKangaroo Jack was titledDown and Under and was shot as a mob comedy in the style ofMidnight Run.[3] The film was initially set up at theDisney labelHollywood Pictures, but Disney placed it into turnaround and instead the film was set up atCastle Rock Entertainment.[4] The film began shooting in Australia in August 2001, lasting about six months in total, and originally included profanity, sex, and violence, intended to be released with anR-rating.[5] According to actorJerry O'Connell, he filmed afull-frontal nude scene for the film.[6] However, the film's producers were dissatisfied by the first rough cut.[5]
Inspired by positive response to the kangaroo scene in early test screenings, as well as the marketing campaign behind the recently releasedSnow Dogs, the production shifted the marketing focus away from that of a dark mafia comedy to that of a family-friendly animal picture. Extensive new footage that replaced theanimatronic kangaroo with a newCGI one that rapped (voiced by an uncreditedAdam Garcia) was shot, and the film was edited down to a PG-rated family animal comedy.[7] Among the changes, repeated utterances of "chickenshit" wereredubbed with "chicken blood".
Kangaroo Jack was theatrically released on January 17, 2003, byWarner Bros. Pictures.
Kangaroo Jack was released onDVD andVHS on June 24, 2003, byWarner Home Video.
Kangaroo Jack earned $16.5 million on its opening weekend and grossed $66.7 million in the United States and Canada and $23.8 million internationally for a worldwide total of $90.5 million.[2]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 9% of 115 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "The humor is gratingly dumb, andKangaroo Jack contains too much violence and sexual innuendo for a family movie."[8]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 16 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[9]
Joe McGovern inThe Village Voice describedKangaroo Jack as "witless" and stated "The colorless script...seems to have written itself from a patchwork ofWile E. Coyote cartoons, camel farts, and every high-pitched Aussie cliché to have echoed on these shores".[10]Nathan Rabin, reviewing the film forThe A.V. Club, criticized thefalse advertising that the kangaroo would have a major role in the story and speak throughout, remarking, "Kangaroo Jack's premise, trailer, and commercials promise little more than the spectacle of two enthusiastic actors being kicked over and over again by a sassy, computer-animated kangaroo—and, sadly, the film fails to deliver even that."[11] Gary Slaymaker in the British newspaperThe Western Mail wrote "Kangaroo Jack is the most witless, pointless, charmless drivel unleashed on an unsuspecting public".[12]
For their performances, Anthony Anderson and Christopher Walken were both nominated for Worst Supporting Actor at the24th Golden Raspberry Awards, but they lost toSylvester Stallone forSpy Kids 3-D: Game Over. The AustraliannewspaperThe Age includedKangaroo Jack on its list of "worst films ever made".[13] However, the film won theKids' Choice Award for Favorite Fart in a Movie (Anthony Anderson).
| Award | Year | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kids' Choice Award | 2004 | Favorite Fart in a Movie | Anthony Anderson | Won |
| MTV Movie Award | 2003 | Best Virtual Performance | "Kangaroo Jack" | Nominated |
| Razzie Award | 2004 | Worst Supporting Actor | Christopher Walken | Nominated |
| Anthony Anderson | Nominated | |||
| Teen Choice Award | 2003 | Choice Movie Actor - Comedy | Anthony Anderson | Nominated |
| Stinkers Bad Movie Awards | 2003 | Worst Supporting Actress | Estella Warren | Nominated |
| Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy | Nominated | |||
| Least "Special" Special Effects | Nominated | |||
| Most Annoying Non-Human Character | Kangaroo Jack | Nominated |
The soundtrack was released byHip-O Records on January 14, 2003.
An animatedsequel titledKangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!, was releaseddirect-to-video on November 16, 2004.[14][15] It was produced byWarner Bros. Animation andCastle Rock Entertainment, but without the involvement ofJerry Bruckheimer Films.
