In 1942 an unpopular nine-year-old boy (Frankie Muniz) gets a Jack Russell terrier who helps him gain confidence and make new friends when his older friend, neighbor and hero (Luke Wilson) is sent to fight in WWII. Based on a memoir by Willie Morris and narrated by Harry Connick Jr. Also with Kevin Bacon, Diane Lane, Caitlin Wachs, Bill Butler, Bradley Coryell, Polly Craig, Peter Crombie, Susan Carol Davis, Lucile Doan Ewing, Winston Groom, Daylan Honeycutt, Clint Howard, Jerome Jerald, Nathaniel Lee, Cody Linley, David Pickens and John Stiritz. [1:35]

SEX/NUDITY 0 - A girl touches a boy's hand and we later see them holding hands. We see a shirtless little boy a few times.

VIOLENCE/GORE 4 - We hear a shot, then see a deer collapse on the ground; a boy touches a small bloody gunshot wound on its side (he gets some blood in his fingers) and as he walks away, we hear the hunters shoot it again. A boy slaps a dog (we don't see it, but we hear the dog yelp); also, a dog is hit with a shovel (again, we don't see it but we hear the dog yelp and then see him lying motionless on the ground; we later see him recovering on a table at a veterinarian's office while a boy talks to him and sobs -- this scene could be quite upsetting to some). A boy hits a man in the eye with a rock to stop him from hitting a dog with a shovel. Men chase a boy through a graveyard and finally grab him; they make him sit on a mausoleum's steps, throw and shatter an empty bottle near his head, then verbally threaten him (we also see a dog with its mouth tied shut with a bandana). We briefly see boys chasing each other and pretending to shoot each other with sticks, a dog being trained for military service (it attacks a stuffed Nazi uniform) and a boy pretending to be a military commander and telling his "troops" that they must kill Hitler. Two men struggle with each other over a shovel, then one pins the other against a wall and grabs his shirt. Boys knock books out of another boy's arms, knock a box out of a boy's hands and rip up his letter, hit a boy on the side of his head with a football and hit him in the head with hard candy. Several shoves and pushes to the ground; during a football game, boys tackle and shove each other roughly. In a scene played for laughs, boys run into each other and fall on the ground while trying to catch a dog. During show and tell at school, a boy points a large shotgun at people and they duck (the scene isn't threatening, but rather comical). In a scene from a movie we see soldiers riding horses during battle (one shoots his gun into the air). A dog is trapped inside a mausoleum. A man wears a prosthetic leg and limps throughout the movie. We see several people spitting. In a frightening (but not violent or gory) scene, boys go to a graveyard at night during a thunderstorm and tell a story about a witch who killed people; some of the boys scare another one by jumping out from behind a gravestone, then they make one stay alone in the graveyard. A jump scene in which a boy grabs another and puts his hand over his mouth. We hear of a dog being arthritic and then dying peacefully of old age (we do not see anything).

LANGUAGE 3 - A couple of anatomical references used as synonyms for "mule" (a boy says them while reading Bible verses), a couple of anatomical slang terms and a clinical term, several mild obscenities (a few spoken by children), a few instances of name-calling and several ethnic and racial slurs.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Having a dog, the death of a dog, friendship, amputees, WWII, WWII deserters, heroes, bootleggers, segregation, hunting.

MESSAGE - Dogs can be the best friends and teachers you'll ever have.