Trash Bin: KANGAROO JACK

Welcome to another installment of the TRASH BIN, where we watch the worst movies Hollywood has to offer, according to the critics, and give you our thoughts, good or bad. This weeks pick is the 2003 buddy comedy...KANGAROO JACK.


This film stars Jerry O'Connell, the child star from Stand by Me (1986), and Anthony Anderson as the two main characters, Charlie and Louis. Kangaroo Jack currently holds an 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is generally despised by critics, who see the movie as inappropriate for children, badly acted, written and directed.

The plot of the film revolves around two guys who become best friends thanks to Louis saving Charlie from drowning by the main villain of the film as a child, Frankie (Brian Casey). From here it jump cuts to them being older and still being best friends, they are both working for the crime boss part time, and have miserably failed their last few assignments, they are now sent to Australia to deliver a package (which turns out to be 50,000 dollars). Upon arriving they end up running over a Kangaroo, which they think is dead. Then Louis decides to place his "lucky jacket" on the kangaroo as a joke, which then comes back to life and they realise that the package is in the Jacket. This leads to a chase around Australian desert as they find out they have paid for their own execution, and just as they are about to be killed by the executioner, the police arrive out of nowhere and arrest everyone. Also, Louis sometimes imagines that Kangaroo Jack can talk.

So as is obvious, the plot is as absurd as anything I've seen, but I chose to do this movie because I watched it when I was only 6 years old, and I have a lot of nostalgia associated with it. I freely admit that this movie is terrible, but it still makes me laugh in the most ridiculous way and I am definitely ashamed to say that I do have a fun time watching it. The happy ending with the both of them on a boat extremely rich from their shampoo company is typical of a child's film, although the jokes are definitely not appropriate most of the time for young children, which might be a reason why I thought it was so funny as a child.

I'm still not sure how this film cost $60 million to make, and how it even got that budget in the first place, meaning that it was probably hard for this film to turn a profit, but it did and made $88.9 million in revenue somehow. Although I would still consider this film a failure in that regard as well as it's critical response. One thing that did surprise me that I forgot about since the last time I watched this film was that it actually has some great acting talent, in the form of Christopher Walken and Michael Shannon as part of the mob, these were the only good performances in my opinion. It just felt like Jerry O'Connell was doing a poor Jason Bateman impression, while Anthony Anderson's performance revolved around a lot of shouting and crying.

One strength I did feel throughout the movie despite poor performances was that Jerry O'Connell and Anthony Anderson actually did have strong chemistry, which I feel is an important part of a buddy comedy and means that it succeeded in one of the most important parts of the film, which is more than I can say for some other buddy films like Let's Be Cops, which I thoroughly disliked. However, with the rest of the film being poor or average at best, and the special effects being dated, there is little for someone who didn't enjoy this film as a child and wanted some nostalgia to get out of it.

For me, this is one of those films, that despite knowing it's terrible, did make me laugh and allowed me to have a good time. How much of this was because of my nostalgia is uncertain but I enjoyed myself  nonetheless, which means that I have to give this film a slightly higher score than most, which surprises myself.

If you want to understand what I mean by ridiculous just take a look at this clip.

  

CRITIC'S SCORES:

Rotten Tomatoes: 8%
Metacritic: 16%
IMDB: 4.4/10

CHRIS'S SCORE: 5/10

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