DERBY DOGS

Name: DERBY DOGS
Item: DERBY DOGS
Author: Review

“Try, Try Again”

Family Content: +1 Moderately questionable elements. (Discernment required for young children.)

Entertainment Quality:

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Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

DERBY DOGS is a family movie about Ben, a 12-year-old boy living in Nelson, New Zealand with his recently widowed mother. As the one-year anniversary of his father’s death approaches, so does the time for the town’s yearly soapbox derby race in which his father was very involved. Ben is forbidden to enter by his mother, but chooses to disobey when a bully calls Ben’s father a loser for having never won the race. Ben teams up with his best friend, Jeff. They start to build a cart in hopes of winning the race and honoring Ben’s father.

DERBY DOGS is a fun, compelling, well-done family movie with good acting and set design. However, the repeated toilet humor and slapstick comedy appears forced and desperate for laughs. The movie’s positive messages include honoring fathers, standing up for what’s right, and trying hard despite fear of failure, but the good messages are dampened by Ben’s numerous lies to his mother and peers. Because of poor role models in DERBY DOGS as well as some toilet humor, caution is advised for younger children.

Content:

(BB, H, V, MM) Strong moral worldview promoting family, honoring one’s father, standing up for what’s right, not letting fear stop you from trying hard, marred by some implied humanist elements of succeeding in your own strength and by some lying; no foul language, but one use of “shut up,” and several instances of toilet humor; several instances of slapstick comedy, boy fights bullies, implied death of a man; no sexual immorality, but husband pats his wife on her bottom; woman wears low cut dress with some cleavage, boy’s pants fall down revealing boxers, cheerleaders are seen in midriff bearing tops and short skirts, girl wears short shorts; no alcohol; no smoking or drugs; and, boy lies often to his mother and peers, children are threatened by bullies, corruption and cheating, but they’re depicted as wrong, dysfunctional family, children steal a couple times.

More Detail:

DERBY DOGS is a family movie about Ben, a 12-year-old boy living a normal life in Nelson, New Zealand with his recently widowed mother. As the one-year anniversary of his father’s death approaches, so does the time for the town’s yearly soapbox derby race in which his father was very involved. Ben is forbidden to enter by his mother, but chooses to disobey when a bully calls Ben’s father a loser for having never won the race. Ben teams up with his best friend, Jeff. They start to build a cart in hopes of winning the race and honoring Ben’s father.
DERBY DOGS is a fun, compelling, well-done family movie with good acting and set design. However, the repeated toilet humor and slapstick comedy appears forced and desperate for laughs. The movie’s positive messages include honoring fathers, standing up for what’s right, and trying hard despite fear of failure, but the good messages are dampened by Ben’s numerous lies to his mother and peers. Because of poor role models in DERBY DOGS as well as some toilet humor, caution is advised for young children.