| Kangaroo Jack | |
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| Directed by | David McNally |
| Produced by | Jerry Bruckheimer |
| Written by | Steve Bing Barry O' Brien Scott Rosenberg |
| Starring | Jerry O'Connell Anthony Anderson Estella Warren Michael Shannon Christopher Walken |
| Music by | Trevor Rabin |
| Cinematography | Peter Menzies Jr. |
| Editing by | John Murray William Goldenberg |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Family Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | 2003 |
| Running time | 89 Minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $60,000,000 |
| Followed by | Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.! (2004) |
| IMDb profile | |
Kangaroo Jack is a buddy-action movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, starring Jerry O'Connell, Anthony Anderson, Christopher Walken and Estella Warren. It premiered in the U.S. on January 11, 2003. An animated children's feature, titled Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.! was produced and released on video in 2004. While the character Kangaroo Jack was advertised as a wisecracking, talking kangaroo, he only appears this way in a dream of Charlie's and at the end of the movie. During the rest of the movie he acts like a normal (if not slightly more intelligent) Kangaroo, and cannot talk.
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Plot
The main characters are entrusted with a large sum of money by a mafia boss (Christopher Walken). They travel to Australia where they are meant to deliver the money. However, they become sidetracked when they drive into a kangaroo on the road. The kangaroo (nicknamed Jackie Legs) does regain consciousness, but only after they have put the money-containing-sweater on it. The film then follows their attempts to retrieve this money. This story is similar to an enduring urban legend involving an American losing his wallet in a similar way. [1]
Detailed synopsis
Twenty years before this story begins, Charlie Carbone almost drowned at a beach in Brooklyn but was saved by Louis Booker. In the present, after getting in trouble by the law for grand theft auto, the two take job to redeem themselves by Salvatore Maggio, A high profile Crime Lord and Gangster boss and Charlie's step-father who met his mother on the day Louis saved his life. Their job is to go to Australia and give fifty grand to a man named Smith. On the way over to Smith, they accidentally hit a kangaroo, and believe they killed it. Louis-believing that the kangaroo looks like "Jackie Legs"-gives the kangaroo his "lucky jacket" and takes a few pictures of him, Charlie, and even the Kangaroo wearing the jacket and sunglasses. The kangaroo appears to be dead until it regains consciousness, kicks Charlie, and hops off with the jacket. Charlie, and Louis laugh about this until the two realize the kangaroo also has the money in the jacket Louis put on him, and chase him throughout the desert and fail when chasing it in a car. They walk to a nearby town to find some help. Louis eventually finds a girl named Jessie, and tells him how to catch one, is by air. Charlie, and Louis later find someone who rides a biplane, and chase the kangaroo again with a tranquilizer gun. Louis failed to shoot the kangaroo and accidentally hits the pilot, and nearly crash into a painful death. Louis and Charlie then decide they should find Jessie again for more help, and run into some dingos but make it out alive. Charlie later, has a fun time while having a vision (or mirage). They continue to walk until Charlie believes that he's having another mirage about a "beauty". The "beauty" he is talking about is actually Jessie, and after he touches her breasts (again he believed she was just a mirage), he gets knocked out, and wakes up seeing the kangaroo talking, rapping, and having other kangaroos destroy the money. It's only a dream when Charlie actually wakes up at a camp site he has to stay in for the night. He makes a deal with Jessie to pay her part of the money once he gets the kangaroo back because he heard from Louis about the soon-to-be extinct bilbies. They find a waterfall where kangaroos drink the next day, and believe the kangaroo will be there, they find him eventually after they train on trying to catch one by hand-made traps. Yet again, they fail to catch the kangaroo because of Louis. By nightfall, they stop to take a bath, and Charlie has his moment with Jessie. The next day, the three are found by Smith who asks him where his fifty grand is, and Jessie realizes that there's more money in the package than she thought and she takes them to where the kangaroos are, but can't prove it. Charlie, and Louis escape to rescue Jessie, and Frankie (a man who Charlie had to deal with for most of his life) comes with his goons, to settle with what's happening in Australia, and finally, Kangaroo Jack appears hopping too fast because it ate one of the candies Louis had in his jacket pocket. Charlie, Louis, and Jessie chase after the kangaroo with Frankie on their trail. Louis finally gets the money but falls off a cliff of a canyon but manages to hang onto a branch. Charlie and Jessie save him, but have to deal with Frankie, who reveals that Sal wanted them dead, and that's why he was making the two go to Australia to pay to Smith for their own execution. The police arrive, and Frankie runs for it, but Charlie catches him in a "bolas" way. Smith, Frankie, and their goons are arrested, Charlie, and Louis get to keep the money and help Jessie, and finally get the jacket off of the kangaroo, and realize that Louis's jacket is actually lucky because it saved their lives. It saved their lives because if they hadn't put the jacket on the kangaroo with the money, they would have paid Smith and would have been executed right then and there. However, the kangaroo's youngest joey kicks Charlie after its family shows up. A year later, Charlie and Jessie are married, and Louis is seen with them who hasn't changed, and they are also rich due to their new snake skin lily berry shampoo sales. As for Sal, he is facing prison despite all his high-level connections. The movie ends with Kangaroo Jack (with the ability to talk again) with the jacket because he wants it to end with him because he believes a movie should end with the star (seemingly ignorant of the fact that it is ending with him).
Goofs
- The biplane crash scene has continuity errors: after the left set of wings hit an abandoned house, in the next scene both wings are attached to the plane, then in the scene after that, the right-side wings are gone.
- The town of Alice Springs is represented as a very desolate, desert country town. However, Alice springs is a semi-urban city of over 26,000 people.
- The "Australian Police" are featured in the movie. There is no such thing. The closest thing would be the Australian Federal Police (AFP), which would have no right to intervene in a case like this.
Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- When Louis is ready to shoot the kangaroo Jackie Legs, he uses a line from the movie Scarface: "Say hello to my little friend!".
- At the end of the film, Kangaroo Jack mocks the famous "That's All Folks!" ending which is off of Looney Tunes.
External links
| Preceded by "Just Married" |
List of Box Office #1 Movies January 19 2003 |
Succeeded by "Darkness Falls" |
Notes
- ^ Seal, Graham. Great Australian Urban Myths, Angus & Robertson, 1995. ISBN 0-207-18827-0 pp 122-123
