Kangaroo Jack

Charlie (O'Connell) and Louis (Anderson) have been getting in trouble ever since they first met twenty years ago. This time however, they went slightly too far when they inadvertently lead the Police to Charlie's mobster boss stepfather Sal's (Walken) warehouse. After the New York Police Department impound everything in it, Charlie and Louis are forced to make amends for this gross error by doing a job for Sal. All they have to do is deliver $50,000 to a Mr Smith (Csokas) in Australia but as the pair are travelling in the outback, they hit a kangaroo with their jeep. Thinking it is dead Louis dresses it up in his lucky Brooklyn jacket and takes his picture with it. As the flash goes off, the dazed kangaroo wakes up and runs off, only for Louis to tell Charlie that the money is in the jacket pocket!

Blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer producers a script by the father of Liz Hurley's child, Steve Bing and you wonder if the once epic producer is loosing his touch.

For a movie entitled Kangaroo Jack, you would expect to see more of the aforementioned marsupial. The computer generation Roo is exceptional, looking very realistic and it is superbly animated. You just don't see enough of it. The script spends more time with the human element and that is what lets the movie down.

Chris O'Connell just doesn't cut it as a leading man. While he has the looks, he just doesn't have the screen presence. Anthony Anderson is just plain annoying. His shouting brand of so-called humour is just dull and repetitive and you just want him to get off the screen every time you see him. Estella Warren is as beautiful as ever and is an actress to watch but make her character an American? This is an insult to all the gorgeous Australian actresses. Have the producers never watched Home & Away or Neighbours? Christopher Walken does another "Pay Check" movie, bringing nothing but his menacing look to his very small role.

What lets the movie down is the predictable script. Too much slapstick and not enough true humour make this hard for older to viewers to watch, with only the young getting anything out of it, in the shape of the greatly underused kangaroo and a very immature jokes.

Kangaroo Jack is passable for the young audience it is aimed at. They will enjoy the toilet humour and the physical comedy but for the rest of us, this is a remarkably average film that you will forget about as soon as the credits roll.

Audio commentary from cast Jerry O'Connell, Anthony Anderson & Estella Warren, director David McNally, writers Steve Bing & Scott Rosenberg and visual effects supervisor Hoyt Yeatman,
Audio commentary from Kangaroo Jack himself!,
'Casting Sessions - Uncut': outrageous animal auditions,
'Gags And Outtakes': Side-splitting cutting room floor goodies,
'Behind The Gas': the sound mixer's job of finding the perfect sound for the flatulent camel,
'Marsupial Magic': how Jackie was transformed from Outback wannabe to screen sensation...in his own words,
'Jackie Legs Dance Grooves': learn how to do Jackie's cool marsupial moves,
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2003