Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this buddy cop comedy (starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan) is directed by Kevin Smith, who is infamous for pushing the limits of an R-rating. This movie is no exception. Both the movie's humor, language, and violence are pretty extreme. Not only are there so many swear words (F-bombs in particular) it's nearly impossible to count, but there are lots of explicit sexual jokes (about everything from positions to prison rape to infidelity), though no actual sex scenes. The violence isn't grisly, but there is a considerable body count and several gang-style executions.
Sexual
Content
Although there are no actual love scenes in the movie, there are many, often graphic, sexual references. For example: Dave makes jokes about several specific sexual positions that Paul's wife enjoys. He also makes jokes about anal rape and sex while temporarily in jail. Paul waggles his eyebrows at his wife and tells her he knows she married him because he's "orally fixated." Debbie wears lingerie and pretends she's going to sleep with a man, in order to get back at Paul for placing a nanny-cam in their bedroom. Paul tells Jimmy about Bonobo chimpanzees and their sexual proclivities in the wild.
Violence
There's at least a dozen murders in this movie, several of which are brutal gangland executions. Others are the result of shoot-outs between criminals and cops. It's not bloody violence, like "Pulp Fiction" because the camera tends to pull away or focus on the killer, as opposed to the murder victims. There are two scenes of torture, in which a drug kingpin with a baseball bat hits balls into a victim's torso. In one scene a kid kicks a cop in the groin and the cop kicks the boy back.
Language
Unsurprisingly, this is a veritable F-word-fest. It's fair to say that every conversation includes several F-bombs and its cousin, "motherf--ker." Other oft-said words include "p---y," "bitch," "a--hole," "dick," "s--t," "c--ksucker," and more. Occasional "goddamn" and "Jesus Christ" used as exclamations.
Social
Behavior
Despite several underlying positive messages -- a strong theme of cooperation and teamwork, wives should be trusted, daughers will love fathers even if they can't pay for fancy weddings, and people should know better than to mess with police partners -- the violence, language, and immature behavior the police officers engage in makes getting a positive message out of this film difficult.
Consumerism
Not applicable
Drugs / Tobacco /
Alcohol
Adult characters drink at dinner and at a bar. The movie's central criminal is a drug dealer. There are many discussions about the drug trade, his connections, and his ambitions to rule the New York drug supply.
