Most Wanted | 2020 | R | – 4.5.10

Why is “Most Wanted” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “drug content, language throughout and some violence.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few kissing scenes and cleavage revealing outfits, a couple of prison fights with bloody wounds, a self-inflicted facial wound with bloody results, several threats of violence (verbally by a man with a gun and other men with baseball bats), a car chase, we see the conditions in a Thai prison, and 70 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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Inspired by a true story and released originally as “Target Number One”: In 1989, undercover Canadian police officers are hoodwinked by an informant (Jim Gaffigan) into sending a drifter and heroin addict (Antoine Olivier Pilon) to Thailand as a big time drug dealer. It all goes very wrong and an investigating reporter (Josh Hartnett) becomes obsessed with finding the truth. Also with Amanda Crew, Stephen McHattie, J.C. MacKenzie, Lanisa Dawn and Rose-Marie Perreault. Directed by Daniel Roby. Several lines of dialogue are spoken in French without translation. [Running Time: 2:15]

Most Wanted SEX/NUDITY 4

 – A husband and his wife kiss. A man and woman do drugs on a boat together, they kiss and lie back on a bed (we see his bare chest and she is wearing a bra and pants that reveal cleavage, bare abdomen and many tattoos on her arms and shoulders) and he kisses down her chest and abdomen before they are interrupted by a phone call.
► Men and women dance in a club and one couple is shown smoking a drug and kissing. A man and two women dance on a boat and when the man walks away the two women continue to dance suggestively with each other. A man offers another man a job on a boat and tells him, “Put a shirt on, this isn’t a gay cruise.” A man makes a crude suggestive remark about a server in a diner. We are told that a Thai man’s name is “Porn” and we see a hotel sign that reads Porn Hotel.
► A woman is shown in a hospital after delivering a baby that she holds in her arms wrapped in a blanket. A man wakes up on a boat wearing briefs and we see his bare chest, abdomen, back and legs. Two women wear a low-cut top and a tube top respectively that reveal cleavage and bare shoulders. Men in a Thai prison are shown shirtless and we see their bare chests, abdomens, backs and legs in many scenes throughout the movie. A dead body is shown shirtless in a morgue with bare chest and shoulders visible.

Most Wanted VIOLENCE/GORE 5

 – A man in a prison carries a sharpened implement and when he is attacked by two other men after one of them slaps another man in the face, he intervenes by using the weapon to stab one of the other men in the shoulder (we see blood) and the other in the side (we also see blood); two of the men ends up in a water trough where one is held underwater briefly, he then gets out and kicks the other man in the face (we see all three men in a clinic attached to IVs and with bandages). A man in a prison is attacked by another inmate and they fight over a carton of cigarettes; they punch each other and one pins the other to the ground and punches him in the face until guards with batons break them up (we see one man with a lot of blood on his face and a cut on his nose, and the other man spits on the ground). During a drug transaction, a woman tries to get a man to open a bag of money but when he won’t she slashes his face with a knife (we see blood), he gets out of the truck and goes to the open bed in the back where two other men are struggling over a bag; the first man pounds on the truck window with his gun and it discharges shooting one man in the head (he falls off the open bed and onto the ground where we see him lying still in a pool of blood).
► Two men with baseball bats break windows in a house and a woman with an infant inside hide in a shower (no one is harmed but the woman is frightened and the baby cries). A man presses a gun to the head of another man and then to the head of a third man while yelling at them and then holds the gun and sleeps with his hand on the gun in several additional scenes. A man hits himself in the face with a rock and we see blood on his chin and mouth. A man punches another man in the face (we do not see an injury).
► A man speeds away in a car chased by two other men in another car and two men in a TV van: they speed through streets, through an alley, where the first car skids against a guard rail, across a trolley track nearly hitting the trolley car and screech to a stop in front of a hospital where two of the chasing men threaten the first man. A man speeds away from a gas station on a motorcycle after stealing gas and a pack of cigarettes; the attendant runs out yelling for him to come back.
► A man threatens another man and says, “I will skin you alive.” A man describes meeting a Colombian drug trafficker and says that he held a gun to his chin and threatened him. A man wakes up on a boat and realizes that his money has been stolen. Men are shown working in a forest presumably cutting lumber. A man translates what another man was yelling at a man while they were fighting as, “You dead.” A man threatens another man and says, “It ain’t gonna end well for you.” A man is afraid that something happened to his wife when he comes back from a trip and cannot find her in their home or where she had been staying (she is unharmed). A man talks about a Canadian citizen being executed in a Thai prison and argues with another man to let him help him. A man is fired from his job. We hear that prisoners will be given the death penalty for drug possession in Thailand.
► A man visits another man in a Thai prison and we see that the inmate has bruises and cuts on his face (presumably from beatings by other inmates). An investigative reporter asks a man probing questions about children that committed suicide while under his care (we do not hear any further details). We understand that an officer died in the line of duty.
► We see a body in a morgue with a bullet hole in his forehead.

Most Wanted LANGUAGE 10

 – About 70 F-words and its derivatives, we are told that a Thai man’s name is “Porn” and we see a hotel sign that reads Porn Hotel, 42 scatological terms, 37 anatomical terms, 7 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for Black people, name-calling (Thai Boy, junkie, dope, loser, low-life, Houdini, fat man, nobody, compulsive liar), exclamations (shut-up, whole shebang), 1 religious profanities (GD), 9 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ, Holy [scatological term deleted]). | profanity glossary |

Most Wanted SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man brings out a packet of drugs (possibly heroin) and smokes some of it after offering some to another man who initially declines and then accepts, a man picks up a packet of drugs from a woman in a pawn shop, a man gives another man a carton of cigarettes in a prison and he gives him a small packet of a drug in return (he snorts it), and a man and woman snort and smoke a large quantity of a drug together. Several people on a boat drink beers in a few scenes, an open bottle of wine is shown on a table and glasses are partially filled, and a man drinks a beer by a swimming pool. A man smokes cigarettes in several scenes, a man smokes a cigar and another man holds an unlit cigar in his mouth, and a man is shown with a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

Most Wanted DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Drug dealing, drug trafficking, the Thailand justice system, coercion, federal drug operations in Canada, abandonment, narcotics investigations, investigative reporting, Zen Buddhism, war on drugs.

Most Wanted MESSAGE

 – Desperate officials will do anything to cover their misdeeds.