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The Nut Job | 2014 | PG | - 1.3.2

A squirrel called Surly (voiced by Will Arnett) is banished by a raccoon (voiced by Liam Neeson) from a park to the city streets for being selfish. Not knowing exactly what to do to survive, Surly stumbles upon Maury's Nut Shop and with his rat pal Buddy (voiced by Eric Bauza) they plan to break in and steal all the nuts. Also with the voices of Brendan Fraser, Gabriel Iglesias, Jeff Dunham, Maya Rudolph and Katherine Heigl. Directed by Peter Lepeniotis. [1:26]

SEX/NUDITY 1 - A male squirrel hugs and kisses a female squirrel briefly before chasing a rat criminal. A half drowned male groundhog punches a male mole that attempts to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation, not wanting their lips to touch.
 A human female is shown with a very tiny waist and very large, curvaceous hips, fully clothed and with a jacket, shirt, and skirt; she walks onto the sidewalk outside and a man follows her, kissing her briefly before she walks away.
 Female squirrels and mice sigh and pass out when they see a tall male hero squirrel; the squirrel speaks of his love for and desire to date a female squirrel, but she tells him that they are not dating and never will be.


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VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - Two vans drive along a highway and a man in one van lights two crates of TNT; the van rolls into the side railing of a bridge, police drive forward in three cruisers, form a roadblock, and fire handguns at the vans; two squirrels escape the stopped van as the bridge cracks and the other van falls into the river, floats to a large log and catches there; a man tries to dislodge the van when he hears a dog whistle, grimaces in pain from the noise, and falls into the water while the log cracks in half and a raccoon holding onto the squirrel is on one part of the log and a chain of other small animals holds onto the other half of the log trying to save the squirrel and the raccoon; the squirrel lets go to save the animals on the other part of the log and he and the raccoon fall over a waterfall.
 A pug dog snarls and chases a squirrel past a vendor's cart; this causes a peanut cart to roll away with the squirrel on top of the cart and it overturns after several block with a small amount of smoke rising; the squirrel points a lit torch at a second squirrel and a propane tank explodes in flames and smoke, propelling the cart into the sky and through a tree's branches, into a mill's water wheel and back into the tree, exploding it and filling the screen with flames and makes popcorn kernels stored in the tree trunk pop and fly seemingly into the audience. A mole uses a water hose to flood a groundhog hole and the water brings the animals up, half drowned and barely moving; a rat and a squirrel do CPR compressions on them until they revive.
 Several large grungy street rats have glowing orange eyes, except for one that has a glazed-over blind eye; the rats attack a squirrel several times in the film, attempting to beat him up (he always escapes). Pigeons grab a squirrel and a small rat to save them from the large rats, but accidentally launch their passengers into a window pane (they are stunned). A tall squirrel practices punching on a large groundhog's stomach without effect and he and another squirrel go to the sidewalk with a backpack; a large street rat steals the backpack and the tall squirrel chases the rat onto a city bus, retrieves the backpack and tosses it to his companion as the bus speeds away.
 A squirrel kicks a pigeon off a telephone wire and rips its nest apart. A nasty girl scout brings a policeman to a peanut vendor whom she harassed and tells the officer, "That man assaulted me with nuts"; the vendor says loudly, "Ohhh noooooo" and waves his hands as the police officer lets him go. A nasty girl scout kicks a man in the shin during the closing credits.
 A bank robber points a gun at one man in a scene and at two men in another scene (he puts the gun away in each case). In the basement of a nut shop, a man points a revolver at a squirrel, while another squirrel jumps down the man's shirt collar to distract him, climbing out the man's pant leg.
 A groundhog pulls open an electrical box and reaches for a green wire when the scene cuts away and we hear electrical buzzing and humming (he is scorched and smoking a little); unconscious on its back, the animal moves when a mole attempts CPR, punching the mole and knocking it out (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details). A raccoon sits on a buoy in a river with a cardinal by his side; shark fins glide around the buoy and the scene ends.
 In a peanut shop, a rat and a squirrel carefully pull cheese from two of many baited mousetraps; one trap snaps the squirrel's tail, but the rat covers the other animal's mouth to prevent screaming and when the rat lets go, the squirrel screams, attracting human attention and the two animals run out to the street. A rat and a squirrel set off many mousetraps as they run across them, a man hears them and captures the squirrel in a cage, brings out a long hunting knife, stabs it into the wooden table in front of the cage and leaves the room. A nasty girl scout snarls and shouts at a peanut vendor, demanding peanuts and pounding on the cart; he stuffs in-shell peanuts into her mouth to quiet her (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details) and she kicks him in the shin. A squirrel hits a small rat with a soup spoon (no injury) and throws a rock at it, missing. A rat throws empty flowerpots onto big street rats, knocking them out and shattering the pots. A squirrel tackles a rat; neither is hurt. A small rat slaps a squirrel in the face to make him focus. A man slaps another man on the back of the head.
 A bird slams a wooden door shut on a mole's paw, making the mole shout and whine in pain. A bird causes a dog to run head first into a telephone pole, but it is unharmed; a car sideswipes the dog and it is unharmed. A bird rides on a truck's windshield wiper blade, pecking a squirrel on the head each time he comes near; the wiper blade sends the cardinal sailing through the air and a window to a building where there is a cat show taking place. A squirrel sees an eagle on a billboard and falls in fright, hitting a window pane, a brick wall and the sidewalk without injury; a brick hits him on the head without damage and crumbles to tiny pieces. A squirrel's head slams into a brick wall and the bricks collapse on his neck without injury. A squirrel plays dead and a man puts it in a garbage can, from which the animal escapes. A squirrel touches an electrical box and bolts of energy crackle through him as we see his skeleton light up, but he is OK. A squirrel falls from a building and hits the pavement, but is unharmed. Two male squirrels scream in fear four times when they encounter each other. The sound of a dog whistle makes a man double over at the waist in pain and clap his hands to his ears as he grunts and grimaces. Rising water makes a water wheel on an abandoned mill turn, catching a squirrel in it and throwing it safely into soft grass.
 Some small animals become teary about a squirrel that they think is dead; a dog leads a rat to the body of a squirrel, lying on dirt at the edge of the park and the dog howls as the rat cries for a few seconds (the squirrel revives).
 Bank robbers tunnel to a bank and we see two sticks of dynamite on the floor; a spark lights a stick of dynamite and a dog picks it up to play with it, but a squirrel tries to wrestle it away until it explodes, blowing up a groundhog's tunnel in large clouds of smoke, and throwing two groundhogs onto a nearby roof; one groundhog asks another what he had for breakfast, implying that the explosion was flatulence (no one is hurt). Three men walk into a tunnel to a spot below a bank vault, and blow up the bank floor using TNT (we see smoke and hear a loud boom); the robbers take bags of money and climb into two vans, driving away as a squirrel bounces off the windshield of one van, while another squirrel slides underneath the other van, riding on a piece of sparking metal and shouting; police officers stand up in a donut shop, see the vans, and chase them in cruisers with lights and sirens going.
 Arguing, one squirrel threatens to make another squirrel into a coat. A mole and a raccoon fight over a squirrel, one pulling on its head and the other pulling on its tail, but it escapes without injury. Several small animals argue about how to gather food for the winter and who should be their leader. A squirrel is banished from a park by an angry raccoon. A mole says that the city is dangerous and full of germs and lice. When animals see that their tree, full of nuts and seeds, is destroyed, a mouse shouts, "We're all gonna die!"; the mouse shouts this again in a subsequent scene and in a third scene, a squirrel shouts, "We're gonna die out here!" (meaning on city streets without food). We hear that the entire winter supply of nuts/seeds for the wildlife in a park is destroyed.
 A pug dog wiggles its rump in the face of a squirrel to show off its curly tail, and then plays dead for a few seconds with its tongue hanging out of its mouth as it lies on its back.
 A squirrel flatulates when he wakes up one morning and a small rat flatulates less loudly. Two male groundhogs flatulate and burp loudly in attempts to be the loudest noisemaker. While two groundhogs dig a hole in the ground, a mole looks over the side and staggers away, waving a paw in front of his nose and complaining about the smell as the groundhogs laugh, flatulate and burp some more; we hear the farting in the hole and the scene cuts to the two animals inside as one burps loudly. A mole blows a raspberry toward an evil raccoon that appears and at a squirrel.

LANGUAGE 2 - 5 exclamations (Curse you! Heck, Son of a gun, Go lick yourself!), 1 rude hand gesture (a rat in a tree thumbs his nose at animals on the ground), 6 mild anatomical terms (butt), name-calling (crazy, moron, idiot, geniuses, brainiac, kookoo, nuts, nutty, weird, coward, chumps, lousy, bums, criminal, clown, snake, dirty rats, thief, evil villain, back-stabbing vermin, Sugar Ray, Mr. Hero), 6 stereotypical references to corrupt and controlling leaders, unthinking followers, the blind, Hollywood heroes, police officers in donut shops, 3 religious exclamations (Holy Toledo).

SUBSTANCE USE - A dark bottle of liquor stands beside a garbage can in shadows in an alley, and a dog staggers as if drunk three times when she hears a dog whistle.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Starvation, teamwork, trust, corrupt governments, conflict, crime, consequences, personal sacrifice, redemption.

MESSAGE - Communities survive only through teamwork.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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