LOOKING FOR ERIC

LOOKING FOR ERIC is the story of a lonely postman, Eric, who has made decades worth of bad decisions. Now, Eric has the chance to turn his life around. A self-help book from his friends, coupled with Eric finding his stepson’s hidden stash of pot, leads him to having visions of Eric Cantona, his favorite soccer player. Through their imaginary conversations, Cantona mentors Eric, helping him to turn his life around. Eric also learns how to rely on his friends, his teammates, even when the local crime boss threatens he and his stepsons.

LOOKING FOR ERIC is pretty entertaining. It has some funny scenes and lively characters. It even has some redeeming elements involving forgiveness, self-sacrifice and the power of friendship. However, the movie is unsuitable for media-wise viewers. It has an over-abundance of strong foul language, including more than 220 obscenities. It also contains strong violent content, worldview problems, strong sexual content with brief nudity, lying, revenge, theft, rebellion, and a large amount of depicted drug use. There are many other movies reviewed at movieguide.org featuring the same redemptive content as LOOKING FOR ERIC, but without all the abhorrent bits.

HEADLINE: ** Gratuitous Immorality **

Title: LOOKING FOR ERIC

Quality: * * * Acceptability: -3

SUBTITLES: None

WARNING CODES:

Language: LLL

Violence: VV

Sex: SS

Nudity: NN

RATING: Not Rated

RELEASE: May 14, 2010 in New York City

TIME: 116 minutes

STARRING: Steve Evets, Eric Cantona, Stephanie Bishop, Gerard Kearns, Stefan Gumbs, Lucy-Jo Hudson, and John Henshaw

DIRECTOR: Ken Loach

PRODUCERS: Rebecca O’Brien

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: None

WRITER: Paul Laverty

BASED ON THE NOVEL/PLAY BY: N/A

DISTRIBUTOR: IFC Films

CONTENT: (PaPa, H, Co, FR, B, C, LLL, VV, SS, NN, AA, DDD, MM) Mostly mixed, strong pagan worldview with some New Age pagan elements, some humanist elements and immoral characters, a Communist moment when one character says his hero is Fidel Castro, false religious moments when another character says his hero is Ghandi and when self-help book has friends perform positive image meditation, though this latter content is seen in a comical context, some moral tone as a father tries to protect his sons and brief positive Christian, biblical values of forgiveness, self-sacrifice and the value of having true friendships; 222 very strong obscenities, 21 strong profanities and several obscene gestures as sports fans give each other “the finger”; strong violence includes a car crash, punching, kicking, father hits children with feather pillow, son hits dad over the head with a gun, some shoving between sports fans, man is threatened by vicious dog, man is shot, masked men vandalize local crime boss’s mansion, using baseball bats to destroy property and spraying paint all over his house; strong sexual content includes implied teen fornication, father walks in on teenage boys watching a porn movie but he makes them turn it off, and implied fornication as characters wake up with women beside them; upper male nudity, rear female nudity on TV screen, side female cleavage, rear male nudity, and full frontal male nudity as man covers his genitals but his pubic hair is seen; beer consumption includes teenage drinking; depicted cigarette smoking, teenagers smoke marijuana more than once and dad takes their pot but smokes it himself; and, strong miscellaneous immorality and problems include unwed pregnancy, lying, stealing, vigilantism, rebellion against father, vandalism, revenge, and man hides crime evidence from police during raid.

GENRE: Drama

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Adults

REVIEWER: Dallas Amsden

REVIEW: LOOKING FOR ERIC is the story of a lonely postman, Eric, who has made decades worth of bad decisions, including walking out on his wife years ago. Now in his fifties and on the brink of a total meltdown, Eric finally has the chance to turn his life around and get his home in order, thanks to the sage advice of an imaginary mentor – his favorite soccer player, Eric Cantona.

Eric’s own home is in disarray. His teenage step-sons don’t respect him. His ex-wife wants nothing to do with him. Not even his best friends, his soccer pals, are able to lift his spirits. All Eric lives for is the one-sided conversations he has with the life-sized poster of his hero, famed soccer player Eric Cantona, that hangs on the wall.

One day, Eric’s friends introduce him to a positive meditation, self-help book. The book, coupled with Eric finding his stepson’s hidden stash of pot, leads him to having visions of Eric Cantona showing up in his bedroom. This leads to Cantona mentoring Eric on how to turn his life around.

Eric heeds almost all of his imaginary mentor’s advice and gets his life in order, including repairing the breach with his ex-wife. However, the one lesson that Cantona continually tries to impart, but Eric is unable to grasp, is that it wasn’t all the goals Cantona made that were his sweetest moments on the soccer field, it was a pass to one of his teammates.

Then, after Eric’s stepsons get illegally involved with the local crime boss. When their home is raided and their lives threatened, Eric must risk everything to save them. This time, though, he won’t be able to save them alone. He’ll have to rely on his teammates – his closest friends.

LOOKING FOR ERIC is a pretty entertaining movie. It has some funny scenes. It has some lively characters. It even has some redeeming elements involving forgiveness, self-sacrifice and the power of friendship. However, the movie is in no way suitable for media-wise audiences. It has an over-abundance of foul language (222 obscenities – almost all of which are the f-word and 21 strong profanities).

This British movie also has strong violent content. In addition, it has worldview problems, including a positive mention of Communist dictator Fidel Castro. Finally, it contains strong sexual content (most of it implied), some brief sexual nudity, lying, revenge, theft, disrespect of parents, rebellion, and a large amount of depicted drug use. There are many other movies that MOVIEGUIDE® recommends that feature the same redeeming elements as this movie without all the abhorrent content.

Please address your comments to:

Jonathan Sehring, President, IFC Films/IFC Entertainment

Joshua Sapan, President/CEO, Rainbow Media Holdings LLC

(Independent Film Channel/IFC Films/IFC First Take/AMC/WE)

11 Penn Plaza

New York, NY 10001

Phone: (212) 324-8500

Website: www.rainbow-media.com

SUMMARY: LOOKING FOR ERIC follows a lonely postman who attempts to turn his personal life around with the sage advice of an imaginary mentor, his favorite soccer player. This British movie has an over-abundance of foul language as well as some violent content, sexual immorality, worldview problems, and extreme drug use.

IN BRIEF:

LOOKING FOR ERIC is the story of a lonely postman, Eric, who has made decades worth of bad decisions. Now, Eric has the chance to turn his life around. A self-help book from his friends, coupled with Eric finding his stepson’s hidden stash of pot, leads him to having visions of Eric Cantona, his favorite soccer player. Through their imaginary conversations, Cantona mentors Eric, helping him to turn his life around. Eric also learns how to rely on his friends, his teammates, even when the local crime boss threatens he and his stepsons.

LOOKING FOR ERIC is pretty entertaining. It has some funny scenes and lively characters. It even has some redeeming elements involving forgiveness, self-sacrifice and the power of friendship. However, the movie is unsuitable for media-wise viewers. It has an over-abundance of strong foul language, including more than 220 obscenities. It also contains strong violent content, worldview problems, strong sexual content with brief nudity, lying, revenge, theft, rebellion, and a large amount of depicted drug use. There are many other movies reviewed at movieguide.org featuring the same redemptive content as LOOKING FOR ERIC, but without all the abhorrent bits.