The Devil Has a Name | 2019 | R | – 4.4.6

Why is “The Devil Has a Name” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “language, some sexual material and drug use, and brief violence.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few kissing scenes and a couple of scenes of forced intimacy, a nude man is shown from the back briefly, a shooting with bloody results, a dead animal, dead trees from contaminated waste water and an explosion (no one is harmed), several arguments and a trial with arguing, and at least 10 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

---

Inspired by true events: a California almond farmer (David Strathairn) goes head-to-head against a big oil company that has poisoned his land and killed his crops. Also with Kate Bosworth, Martin Sheen, Pablo Schreiber, Edward James Olmos, Haley Joel Osment, Chivonne Michelle, Katie Lynn McDowell, Alfred Molina, Tahmoh Penikett, Aly Mawji, Rob Moran and Kathleen Quinlan. Directed by Olmos. A few phrases are spoken in Spanish without translation. [Running Time: 1:37]

The Devil Has a Name SEX/NUDITY 4

 – While threatening a man another man holds the first man’s crotch, rubs it, caresses his face, presses his forehead against his and kisses him on the lips. A man lies next to a woman on the floor (she has passed out from drinking too much), he caresses her hair while humming a tune, she straddles him (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details), and he holds her thigh and presses his fingers between her legs (implying penetration).
► A woman straddles a man’s lap and thrusts briefly in a club and we see her off-the-shoulders blouse revealing cleavage and her bra. A man runs out of his house wearing a towel around his waist (we see his bare chest, abdomen, back and legs to the mid-thighs) and chases another man in a car after breaking the other man’s window with a golf club; the first man later gets out of the car and yells at a woman before removing the towel and wiggling his bare buttocks at her (we see this part on video in a courtroom later). Women wear low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage, bare shoulders and backs at an event. A man showers and we see his bare chest, and shoulders.
► After a woman says that she bit her tongue, a man tells her, “You’re gonna need that where you’re going.”

The Devil Has a Name VIOLENCE/GORE 4

 – A man is shot four times in the chest and we see bloody bullet holes as he falls to the ground and is dragged to a pond where he is held underwater to drown and presumably pushed into contaminated water, where he is later covered by mounds of large rocks.
► A man slams another man’s face onto a bar (he has a bloody nose and mouth), and then punches him in the face and he falls to the floor (we see more blood on his nose). A man runs out of his house wearing a towel around his waist and chases another man in a car after breaking the other man’s car window with a golf club. A man lies next to a woman on the floor that had passed out from drinking too much; she then straddles him and holds a piece of broken glass to this throat, cutting him (we see blood on his neck and fingers and he licks his fingers). A woman rams a golf cart into a car and she slams her face onto the steering wheel (we see blood in her mouth and on her teeth).
► A man pours gasoline in an orchard and lights it; flames burst thought the trees, two men scramble to get other people to safety and we hear that 20 acres were burned before putting out the fire. A man gets up from a chair in another man’s house and says, “Your chair’s on fire,” and we see smoke coming from the chair as the other man pours a cup of coffee on it to douse the fire. A man plants something in a car and it later explodes in flames.
► A man loads a gun, hides behind a door in an office and when another man slams the door open, the first man fires the gun into the ceiling; the attacker slams the man against a wall and holds him across the throat while squeezing, and then rubbing his crotch. Two men shove each other and scuffle and end up on the floor with one man pushing his finger in the other’s nose; they stop fighting and laugh, without injuries. A man yells and throws things off a desk. A man cries and struggles to revive his dead wife while a friend and a nurse try to calm him. A man picks up a handgun in an office and holds it. A man throws another man’s phone into the ocean. A woman drops a cup of coffee on a floor spilling it and breaking the cup.
► Two men argue bitterly and one asks to be taken back to his cell. A man tells a woman that someone will, “Pop a bullet in your brain,” and refers to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. A man threatens another man and says, “I’m gonna start taking,” threatening the people close to him. A man talks about killing a woman (figuratively). A man talks about Ford Motors and a lawsuit against them over the Ford Pinto; he describes that the fuel tank in the car would burst into flames and the attitude of the car company was, “Let ’em burn,” and he explains that it cost the company less to pay off claimants than it would cost to recall the cars and fix the problem. A man asks another man if he wants some water and the man replies, “That’ll rot your pipes.” People talk about water being radioactive. Several scenes show glowing particles moving through groundwater. A man tells another man that a third man making an offer of money is trying to scam them. A man says of an oil company, “They may have poisoned my wife.” A lawyer in a courtroom accuses a man of pushing “His leftist agenda.” We hear that a man falsified documents to be able to work in the U.S. A judge charges a man with contempt of court. Someone talks about “Fighting these pigs.”
► The remains of an animal are dredged out of a pond of water and it looks blackened and as if it was melted. The head of a large animal is mounted on the wall of a woman’s office and she tells a man, “Shot it, killed it, dressed it and mounted it on my wall.” A woman gags and retches (we do not see goo) when standing near a wastewater pond and a man gives her a small fan to blow the fumes away. A mass of material is dug up in a man’s orchard and it isn’t clear what it is (it looks like a melted mass of roots). Many trees in an orchard are shown blackened and toppled over. A man throws a food item at a woman as she gets into an elevator (we do not see the food land). A man in a courtroom tells a judge, “I have to go to the toilet very badly” and he leaves the room.

The Devil Has a Name LANGUAGE 6

 – About 10 F-words, 3 sexual references, 19 scatological terms, 10 anatomical terms, 30 mild obscenities, 3 derogatory terms for Hispanic people, name-calling (nuts, whipper-snapper, devil, impertinent [anatomical term deleted], hack, communist, anarchist, cow, baby, scam, country bumpkin, girlie, crazy, boy, hoss, loco, dumb, uppity [derogatory term for Hispanic people deleted], put-upon, clumsy, still hot, mumbo-jumbo, filthy, terrorist, ungrateful, irresponsible, crusader, snakes, selfish, personal crusade, con-artist, thief, lunatic, dragon slayer, relevant, has been, racist), exclamations (lookie-here, shut-up, slow your roll, viva la revolution, drop it, dang it, what the devil, what the heck), 4 religious profanities (GD), 8 religious exclamations (e.g. What The Devil, Jesus Christ, Oh God, For God’s Sake, So Help Me God, Oh Christ, Holy [scatological term deleted]). | profanity glossary |

The Devil Has a Name SUBSTANCE USE

 – A reference to “cocaine cupcakes” is made, several prescription vials are seen on a bedside table, and two men and a woman snort cocaine in a couple of scenes. People at an event drink alcohol, a man drinks a beer, a woman drinks shots from a flask in a meeting room, a man guzzles a tall beer in a bar and other men drink around the bar and pool table, and a woman drinks a lot of whiskey in several scenes and passes out breaking a bottle in one scene. A woman puts a cigarette in her mouth (she does not light it), and a man smokes what looks like a cheroot in another man’s house.

The Devil Has a Name DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Oil waste production, failure, death of a loved one, grief, greed, immigration, falsifying evidence, friendship, forgery, deportation, risk, embarrassment, liability, Ford Pinto, progress, salvation, redemption.

The Devil Has a Name MESSAGE

 – Fighting big oil is a deadly proposition and a hard battle to win.