Today’s Prayer Focus

Slackers

MPA Rating: R-Rating (MPA)

for strong language and sexual content, and for brief drug use.

Moral Rating:	Extremely Offensive
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience:	Adults
Genre:	Comedy
Length:	1 hr. 27 min.
Year of Release:	2002
USA Release:

Devon Sawa and James King (III) in “Slackers”

Featuring	Jason Schwartzman, Devon Sawa, Jason Segel, James King, Michael C. Maronna
Director	Dewey Nicks
Producer	Neal H Moritz, Erik Feig
Distributor	Screen Gems, a division of Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment

Here’s what the distributor says about their film: (from the producer) Dave (Devon Sawa), Sam (Jason Segel) and Jeff (Michael C. Maronna) are about to graduate from Holden University with Honors in lying, cheating and scheming. The three roommates have proudly scammed their way through the last four years of college and now, during final exams, these big-men-on-campus are about to be busted by the most unlikely dude in school. Self-dubbed Cool Ethan (Jason Schwartzman), an ambitious nerd with a bad crush, enters their lives one day and everything begins to unravel. When Ethan accidentally catches Dave in an exam scam and gathers some incriminating evidence against him, Dave and his friends find themselves completely at his mercy. Threatening to expose the three SLACKERS Ethan offers a deal: he’ll let the guys off the hook on one condition that they use their unethical expertise to get him the object of his desire, the brainy babe Angela (James King).

Negative

Negative—I went to see this movie earlier tonight, I hadn’t even heard of it but a couple of my friends wanted to go, so I went. I don’t think I can recommend this movie to anyone. It is a typical, perverted college comedy on the level of American Pie. Some parts are funny, but not for the most part. There is a message in the movie, as the main character, Dave Goodman played by Devon Sawa, realizes the wrong in cheating and decides to give it all up for “love.”

The profanity is pretty bad, f-words and worse, although it’s not the worst movie out there in that sense. Some of the sexuality and insinuations are very explicit. There is some nudity, a college girl masturbating, and an oral sex scene (although the latter two scenes contain no nudity). Basically this movie had no real redeeming qualities, the quality is pretty poor and the theme is shallow. My two friends, who are non-Christians, even exclaimed that it’s the worst movie they have ever seen. I don’t see any reason in the world for a Christian [to see it]…
My Ratings: [Extremely Offensive / 1½]

Ken Rapoza, age 20

Comments from young people

Negative—It was a terrible movie. I’d never heard of it but I watched it at a party with some friends. I didn’t know what it was rated but a few minutes into the movie I knew it had to be rated R. It was pointless and there is absolutely no reason why anyone, especially a christian, should see it.
My Ratings: [Very Offensive / 2½]

Amy, age 16

Movie Critics

…31 F-words, 2 obscene hand gestures, 10 sexual references, 13 scatological terms, 18 anatomical terms, 11 mild obscenities, 1 religious profanity, 21 religious exclamations…

Kids-in-Mind

**Caution** “…young woman masturbating; an imagined scene of one guy and two girls making out (with the women kissing each other); a college student giving a sponge bath to an older, topless woman who’s aroused by what he’s doing (and he kisses her nipple after she tells him to); a married woman performing oral sex on a young man (not explicitly seen); a student with a sock puppet on his erect penis; implied sex between students; passionate kissing and other such behavior; and some homosexual references…

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