Kangaroo Jack (2003)

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Blistering performances.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

So this film was originally supposed to be an adult mafia comedy, but people said it wasn't funny enough for adults, so they threw in a KANGAROO and made it for KIDS, because it's never too late to show your kid a movie about the MAFIA! The plot does make sense (sorta) compared to other bad films. The two main characters are friends after one is saved by the other from drowning. They then get into trouble and end up needing to deliver a package to Mr. Smith in Australia for Christopher Walken and Michael Shannon, who are the best things in the film. I mean SERIOUSLY. Their performances make me think they were told that the film is called "Death in the Outback" or something of the like. They find out that the package has 50,000 dollars in it, so they go into the airplane bathroom to talk about it loudly without saying any word that means money, so everyone hearing this thinks it's poop they are talking about and that they "Want to roll in it." I can see why people thought it wouldn't be funny for adults. So in Australia they just drive around and hit a kangaroo with their car and because they are sick people the take pictures with it, even putting the one guys' jacket on the kangaroo with the money in it, and then it wakes up, kicks one of the guys and runs off with the cash. The rest of the movie is about them chasing the kangaroo to get the cash back. They then go to a zoologist or someone like that who is Estella Warren and they think she's hot, and they get stranded in the desert a few minutes later and she comes to save them and one of them thinks she's a mirage so he squeezes her tits on camera. WHAT A TOTALLY CHILD APPROPRIATE SCENE! Seriously, I'm OK with a hidden dirty joke in kids films for the adults in the audience, but upright squeezing a womans breasts should NOT BE IN A KIDS MOVIE. Anyway, she then hits him upside the head with a conga drum, knocking him unconscious. He then dreams that the Kangaroo is rapping Hip Hop while, uhm, twerking. Why did the show this scene right after the man squeezed a girl's boobs? No, seriously, why? Also, they used this scene in the trailers, making everyone think the film is about a rapping kangaroo, which, in fact, he's only in the film for like, what, five minutes in total, and a good two minutes is about his finding Licorice and cinnamon candy in the jacket. HE DOESN'T EVEN TALK EXCEPT FOR THE DREAM SEQUENCE OR DURING THE CREDITS! Anyway, then the scene get weirder with two more kangaroos, one of them voiced by Christopher Walken (I think), and it rains money and I at first thought my snacks were laced with LSD. They then close in on the camera chanting "Chicken Blood." Because that's not gonna traumatize kids at all. He wakes up, and for some reason the girl doesn't care about the titty squeezing and is immediate friends and makes out with him later in the film? Sure, that's realistic. So they hunt the kangaroo armed with tranquilizers but then Mr. Smith notifies Walken about not getting the money and Walken sends Shannon to deal with it. I assume. Shannon pretty much just showed up out of the blue in my perspective. Anyway, the following will contain spoilers, but I don't think anyone should really watch this. Unless you want to, then don't read this next part, just skip to were it says: (SPOILER OVER) on my review. Eventually they get the money after chasing the kangaroo, but the PLOT TWIST! Shannon pulls a gun on them and explains in one of the best gangster ways that the money was just being sent to Smith so he could KILL THEM! Seriously, ten bucks says he wasn't aware what the title was. But the police arrive before he can shoot (big disappointment, I know), and that's basically about it. Oh wait, the movie addresses during the credits that they forgot the film was about the kangaroo, with the kangaroo saying: "Wait a minute, this film is called 'Kangaroo Jack!' It should be about ME!" (SPOILER OVER) I honestly wish they stuck with the original idea, sure, it may not have been funny, but at least we could see more Walken and Shannon or get some action, and a good story maybe. The only redeeming quality is Walken and Shannon playing a gangsters. They should to a role like that again. But instead we got this garbage which for some reason is considered "Child Appropriate." Sure, nothing like a film about Kangaroos stealing money from gangsters including scenes of titty squeezes and threats at gunpoint for kids! Also the main characters acting in many scenes seems stale and that they forgot their lines and are improvising. Walken and Shannon are the only really good actors in this film, and Warren also did a good job as well, and I hope these three fired their agents after this. But you know what's worse, they made an ANIMATED SEQUEL! It apparently was a success, making $88,929,111 world wide! My guess on that was the misleading trailers and poster, making you think the kangaroo actually talked. It should have been at least a PG-13 with it's violence, sexual content, and language.

Kangaroo Jack is god. If you dare slander his name, i promise you pain without end. Kangaroo Jack is the greatest movie to be created by Warner Bros. One of my personal favorite scenes is when they are in the toilet and it sounds like their talking about poop when they're talking about money haha 10/10

I watched this the other day and actually found it pretty funny. Although it is nothing spectacular, there were some good moments. However, there are some geographical errors that i feel i need to correct...the two protagonists arrive in Sydney, and depart by jeep, bound for coober pedy which is about 2500km away, a lot closer to Adelaide. They then somehow go via Alice springs (which for some reason looks like an old western town). Alice springs is north of coober pedy by about 1200km and if driving from Sydney they are coming from the east. It seems that the writers have just plucked some random names of cities and put them in the story. It isn't a big deal, but seriously, if i want to go to Miami, i don't fly to L.A then drive there via New York...Just saying. Alice springs is also a large town with around 30 000 people. Now that this is cleared up, although the plot wasn't very new or creative, it still made for a good story, even though it was entirely predictable at times. With the exception of Estella Warren, the cast was good. I like Chris Walken's character, albeit a minor role for him. The film has some good laughs in it...even more if you know anything about Australia. Would recommend if you are bored and it is lying around in your house for some reason.

I was fooled by the packaging. I expected the movie to be about a kangaroo. It was - but just barely. I even thought it would be about a talking kangaroo. It was - but only for a moment. It was advertised as fodder for kids. Well, it tends to remain in the general audience vein with brief strays into light-hearted sexual innuendo. No, here the kangaroo is simply incidental to the actual story which isn't that compelling to start with. It is mostly a CGI kangaroo and not always a very good one. When the animal is actually on the screen it tends to almost be annoying because it tends to come across as a commercial. Sort of like .... meanwhile, here is what the kangaroo is doing. It breaks up the storyline with somewhat lame attempts at the kangaroo trying to be funny. Completely unnecessary. As for the story - it could have actually been a good Mafia-lite film in a way. The resulting revelation about the purpose of the kangaroo hijacked envelope of money was the most interesting part of the film. There are some amusing sequences but nearly none have anything to do with the kangaroo. Why was the kangaroo billed as the star? I don't know. Even as the film ends the kangaroo soliloquies that he is the star and finally gets to performing in the way I originally thought the film was going to convey. By the end of the film I felt somewhat betrayed. I was waiting for a kangaroo that never really happened.