Ocean's Eight

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Not recommended under 13, parental guidance to 14 due to drug use, sexual references and scenes, and coarse language.

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Ocean's Eight
  • a review of Ocean's Eight completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 14 June 2018.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 13 Not recommended due to drug use, sexual references and scenes, and coarse language
Children 13-14 Parental guidance recommended due to drug use, sexual references and scenes, and coarse language
Viewers 14 and over OK for this group

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Ocean's Eight
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Coarse language
Length: 110 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) is released from jail after serving a five-year sentence for fraud. She has been using her time to plan, down to the tiniest detail, the biggest jewel theft in history and sets about the task of putting together a team of specialists capable of pulling off the robbery.

The first on Debbie’s list is Lou (Cate Blanchett) an old friend and former partner in crime; Lou specialises in finding the right people for the right job. Next is Rose Weil (Helena Bonham Carter), a washed-up fashion designer who still has some talent. The third is Amita  (Mindy Kaling) a jewellery maker, the fourth a computer hacker called Nine Ball (Rihanna), the fifth is Constance Wong (Awkwafina) a master pick pocket, the sixth a master fence named Tammy (Sarah Paulson). The seventh and final member of team comes in at the end of the film.

Debbie’s plan is to steal a diamond necklace worth 150 million dollars from the neck of a socialite named Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway) at the upcoming Met Gala Costume Ball. Intricate plans are set into motion with every contingency allowed for, including setting up Debbie’s not so nice ex-boyfriend Claude Becker (Richard Armitage); the man responsible for sending Debbie to jail. On the night of the Gala Debbie and her band of cohorts play their parts flawlessly stealing the diamonds and making their escape.

Unfortunately for the team, insurance investigator John Frazier (James Corden) is hot on their trail and it is up to Debbie to find a solution.  

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Crime; revenge

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

  • A woman pushes up against a man, physically threatening him by holding a toothbrush with a blade on the end at the man’s groin. She then holds the blade against the man’s neck and cuts a button from his jacket collar while leaving him uninjured. 
  • A woman is deliberately given a drug that causes nausea. We see the woman running towards a toilet and hear the sounds of her violently vomiting.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

Nothing of concern apart from the violent scenes described above

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, children aged five to eight may be disturbed by a reference to a woman being bitten by “chiggers” that burrow under the skin and lay eggs that hatch out.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Children in this age group may also be disturbed by the scenes described above

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Nothing of concern

Product placement

Major brand names are displayed throughout the film including:

  • Cartier, Apple/Mac/I phone, Subway, Toyota, BMW, Nutella, Smirnoff. 

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • A woman, while physically threatening a man, tells him “In jail they’d call you a pretty boy”.
  • A woman jokes to another woman, asking her if her plan to steal jewels was a proposal
  • A young woman argues with her mother and her mother says, “This is why you have no husband”.
  • A woman mentions being “deflowered”
  • Two women look at a dating app, which they respond to in a favourable manner.
  • We hear a young man boast about looking down the front of a woman’s dress while serving her at a dinner party.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • Several scenes of women wearing low-cut tops that reveal cleavage. We see the sides of one woman’s breasts exposed through a gap in the sides of her dress
  • A man and woman kiss passionately
  • In one scene a woman dressed in underwear straddles a man’s lap (he is fully clothed) she slaps his face hard and then kisses him passionately on the lips.
  • In one scene we see a woman in sexy clothing and a man lying in a bed, he is wearing boxer shorts and is handcuffed to the bedhead. The woman leaves the room for a short time and no sexual activity is seen

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • A woman openly smokes cannabis. 
  • Social drinking of wine and spirits.
  • A woman’s food is drugged with several drops of a drug that causes nausea, causing her to vomit violently.   
  • A man talks about smoking “grass” while at work.
  • In one scene we see several women adding water to bottles of vodka and a woman says that drunk people won’t tell the difference between real vodka and watered down vodka.
  • A woman pours a martini for her dead brother at a mausoleum and leaves it untouched on a seat.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Jesus (used several times in a variety of contexts; bugger; the word “shit” is used on several times in various contexts; piss yellow; screw up; holy crap; arse.
  • baller, useless, shmuck, and idiot.  

In a nutshell

Ocean’s Eight is an action crime thriller. While perhaps not quite as charismatic as George Clooney and his team of criminal experts from the previous Ocean films, Debbie Ocean and her team manage to pull off their robbery with flare, fashion and intelligence, and without the use of guns or a single punch thrown. The film’s entire cast is very high calibre and the age range of the actors will appeal to a wide-ranging audience. It is best suited to an older adolescent and adult audience and not recommended for children under 13 because of coarse language, sexual references and scenes, and drug use.

The main messages from this movie are:

  • Crime can pay very, very well and you don’t get caught if you’re clever and plan your crime well.
  • Teamwork and careful planning lead to success.