Aftermath | 2017 | R | – 5.5.5

Why is “Aftermath” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “a scene of violence.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a sex scene without graphic nudity, and several hugs and a kiss, a stabbing that leaves one man dead in a pool of blood, a mid-air plane crash that leaves all people on board both planes dead, several arguments, and at least 1 F-word. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.”

---

Two men’s lives are emotionally entangled after a deadly airline collision: An air traffic controller (Scoot McNairy) fumbles when he is abandoned in the control tower, causing the death of a man’s (Arnold Schwarzenegger) wife and pregnant daughter. The man cannot find peace until he receives respect and an apology for their deaths. Based on a 2002 disaster. Also with Maggie Grace, Martin Donovan, Judah Nelson and Hannah Ware. Directed By Elliott Lester. [Running Time: 1:34]

Aftermath SEX/NUDITY 5

 – A nude man in a bedroom lies on top of a women wearing a spaghetti-strap slip as he thrusts repeatedly, she moans and they kiss many times as the scene ends (both are under covers from the waist down and there’s no graphic nudity). A man and a woman embrace briefly in several scenes and kiss briefly in one of those scenes.
► A woman asks a man if he had sex with his teddy bear as a child and he does not reply. A woman sits in a man’s lap and says they and their young son can sleep in the same bed; the camera cuts to the boy lying asleep between the clothed parents under covers. We hear that a woman is pregnant and we see a copy of a fetus ultrasound pinned to a wall.
► A man appears in four scenes briefly, nude from the waist up and we see his bare chest, arms, shoulders and upper back.

Aftermath VIOLENCE/GORE 5

 – A man opens his door and is met by another man as he angrily sticks a photo of two women in his face, demanding that he should look and the resident shouts for the second man to leave or he will call police and asks twice, “Have you lost your mind?”; one man grabs a knife from the floor and stabs the other in the stomach below the frame (he gasps, chokes and doubles up in pain), and one man stabs the other in the throat in close-up and we see blood gush as the victim grabs his throat, as he gags, chokes, falls to the floor and writhes; he reaches up for a drawer containing a gun and the attacker slams the drawer shut as a woman and a young boy enter the room crying and the camera pulls back and we see the victim lying in a pool of blood.
► A man goes to a plane crash site and poses as a cleanup volunteer when he finds his adult daughter’s necklace and grimaces; he finds her body on the ground and finds his wife’s body in the fork of a tree about 20 feet above the ground (we see neither face) and he cries as he hugs the body of his daughter. Several men wearing hazmat suits walk around a smoldering plane crash site among debris where we see the bodies of two women still strapped into seats in a partial fuselage (we cannot see their faces). A warehouse setting is shown with a concrete floor lined with several rows of body bags marked with ID numbers.
► An air traffic controller is left alone in the tower as the other controller steps out and two maintenance workers disable telephone lines and while on a broken phone, the controller does not hear a pilot say that he is going to change attitude and when the other controller returns to his station he sees two planes on intersecting courses at the same altitude and sees the screen go blank; the scene cuts to an official escorting the first controller to see an airport executive that tells the controller it is not likely that anyone survived the crash and the controller grimaces, demands to know how many died, can’t get an answer, cries, sobs, and wails as he rocks back and forth as the executive says, “Keep it together.”
► A man visits his family’s grave and a teenage boy approaches him, speaks and follows the man looking like he is stalking him; he pulls a handgun from his pocket, tells the man to turn around and points the gun into the back of the man’s head as he tells the boy to go ahead and kill him and apologizes for killing the boy’s father; the boy lowers the gun and sits under a bridge tearfully gasping as the man walks away. A man asks a psychiatrist for a prescription three times and curses loudly; the camera cuts to the man with a pill bottle on a coffee table and a handgun in his lap.
► A man at an airport is led to an empty room and kept waiting before being told that his wife and pregnant daughter likely did not survive a collision between two planes; the man is startled, grimaces, cries, passes out (the screen goes black) and awakens in a clinic with a blood pressure cuff on one arm. Two airline lawyers advise a man to drop his lawsuit and accept a token payment for the death of his wife and daughter in a crash; the man tries to speak several times and the attorneys cut him off until he gets up from the table and shoves photos of his wife and daughter at them, shouts and walks out.
► A man’s house is shown with large red letters drawn on porch pillars and window shutters that read “killer” and “murderer.” Several TV broadcasts report that all 271 passengers and crew died in a mid-air collision with a cargo plane, whose crew also died. A man is shown in a penitentiary surrounded by walls and barbed wire.
► A man and a woman argue about having the news on in front of their young son, and the woman turns it off. A man cooks some eggs half way for a child, and a woman grabs the plate and pours them down the drain as the man yells at her; she shouts, “They’re raw!” and he shouts and curses at her as the child looks scared and cries. A woman tells a man that she is leaving for several days with a child and he looks stunned. A man sleeps in front of his family’s grave at night, a caretaker shouts, tells him to leave and says he cannot keep sleeping in the cemetery at night; the man groggily leaves. A man says that he imagines himself in the shoes of the families whose relatives died in a plane collision and says, “I’m scared to death.” A man shouts that he will rob a pharmacy (he does not).
► A man tells another man that there will be a trial, he will not be convicted, and that he should see a psychiatrist, develop a new identity and move away to ensure the safety of his wife and child; two police officers take him away in a cruiser and we see him questioned for an entire day before he is released, and we subsequently see him with a new identity in a different state. A man and other crash victims’ relatives attend a dedication of a memorial at a crash site when another man approaches him, tearful, and says he does not know how to handle the loss; we hear a dedication and a phrase of scripture from the book of Matthew. A man serves 10 years in prison for murder and is released on condition of seeing a psychiatrist three times a week.
► A man bumps hard into another man but no injury occurs. We see two close-ups of an airplane wing as it sheds pieces and begins to fall apart. A flashback shows a young woman as we hear groans of pain off-screen. We see a blurry flashback of a dead woman in a tree fork in the middle distance.
► A man hears his doorbell ring and checks to see that his handgun is in a nearby drawer; he answers to find his young son. A doorbell rings and a woman opens the door to find no one there. A man sits in a dark room at home when a journalist pounds hard on the man’s front door and calls out that she is writing a book about a plane collision and she pushes some articles of plane disasters she has written through the mail slot of the door. A man pins many articles on plane disasters and photos of his wife and daughter to a wall in his home.
► A man dumps prescription pills into his hand and swallows them before putting his fingers down his throat causing himself to gag and vomit undigested pills and phlegm onto the floor (we see goo and pills).

Aftermath LANGUAGE 5

 – At least 1 F-word, 1 mild obscenity, exclamations (shut-up), 2 religious profanities (GD), 3 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Christ, Why God). | profanity glossary |

Aftermath SUBSTANCE USE

 – We see three prescription bottles on a coffee table, a man visits a psychiatrist and says he only wants drugs and not talk therapy, and a man dumps prescription pills into his hand and swallows them before putting his fingers down his throat causing himself to gag and vomit undigested pills and phlegm onto the floor. A man and a woman have large goblets of wine at home and she drinks from hers but he does not drink, an unopened bottle of wine is shown on a kitchen counter in two scenes, a man sits on a couch with an empty liquor bottle on a nearby coffee table, and a man brings another man a bottle of beer and both men drink from their own bottles.

Aftermath DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Air traffic control mistakes, airlines in America, corporate greed and insensitivity, death, murder, survival, losing one’s family, emotional trauma, taking a stand, guilt, loneliness, kindness and understanding, living with consequences, immigrants.

Aftermath MESSAGE

 – Unnecessary airline related mistakes can cause death and cascading personal disasters.