Parents' Guide to King Jack

Parents need to know that King Jack is a coming-of-age drama about a teen in a crumbling blue-collar neighborhood who's trying to deal with vicious bullying, a cruel older brother, girl troubles, and a younger cousin who's sent to live with them after the cousin's mother is hospitalized due to mental illness. Expect frequent, almost sadistic bullying: The lead character is kicked and beaten to within an inch of his life and left with a concussion and a broken rib. He's also spray painted in the face, knocked to the ground (with his face held in concrete), threatened with a knife, cut on the face after sneaking into a room where he thinks he's about to have sex with a girl. A 10-year-old boy is tied to a lawn chair while others shoot him in the chest with a paintball gun. The 10-year-old is also forced to hold a lit M-80 firecracker and told that if he holds it for a long count to 10, he'll be let go. The characters who instigate all of this are attacked by an adult wielding a tire iron, and one is knocked in the head by a baseball bat. Verbal abuse includes Jack being told that he has a small penis and the unwelcome nickname ("Scab") bestowed by Jack's older brother, who constantly berates him. While there are implied consequences for the bullying behavior, the movie is a bit too wrapped up in its own unflinching take on realism to have any clear-cut positive messages on the subject. Teens engage in other iffy behaviors, too: smoking, drinking, showing their private parts during truth or dare (Jack also sends a picture of his penis to someone he has a crush on), forcing vodka shots on each other, etc. And in the opening scene, Jack spray-paints "c--t" on the garage door of one of the people who's bullied him. There's no sugarcoating in this movie, whose takeaway could be construed as "stand up to bullies at all costs, and don't rat to the police."

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