Spin Out

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Spin Out
• a review of Spin Out completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 20 September 2016.

Overall comments and recommendations

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.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

This Australian film is set over a single day and night that revolves around the annual Bachelor and Spinsters (B&S) Ball in a rural town. Billy (Xavier Samuel) and Lucy (Morgan Griffin), who have been best mates forever, have a passion for ‘utes’ and synchronised driving. Billy and Lucy along with Billy’s best mate Sparrow McGee (Travis Jeffery), who dresses in a cow costume and rides in the back of Billy’s ute, compete in a pre - ball spin-out competition. When Billy decides to get creative, the spin-out routine ends in a near disaster, with the Billy and Lucy losing the competition.

Unhappy with her current situation, Lucy decides to move to Sydney but Billy is determined to persuade her to stay. With a cast full of comic characters, the ball night is full of misunderstandings, romance, laughs, pranks and mud wrestling.  The following morning brings a change in direction for some.

Life in rural Australia; Bachelor and Spinsters Balls; competitive driving; relationships; alcohol abuse

There is some violence in this movie including:

• A man refers to being bullied by school girls when he was at school.   
• A woman grabs hold of a man’s finger and gives it a hard twist; there is a sound like bones breaking but no damage appears to be done.
• A woman tells a man “I’ll kick your nuts so high people will think you’re blowing little hairy bubbles”.
• When a man jumps a queue to use a toilet cubical, one of the men waiting in the queue throws an explosive device into the toilet cubical and closes the door. There is an explosion and a man covered from head to foot in faeces walks out of the cubical.    
• At a party three woman throw their drinks at men.
• In one scene a woman bends a man’s arm behind his back and leads him out of the ball.
• Two men wrestle in a large puddle of mud. One of the men becomes more aggressive and begins to lose control, repeatedly punching the other man in the face until he is stopped by onlookers.

Material that may scare or disturb children

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

• Children may be scared by several scenes depicting young men and women driving utes recklessly on rural dirt roads.  One man is seen standing in the back of one of the utes hanging onto a rollbar as it slides around corners. A couple of scenes depict synchronised driving ( two utes spinning around in circles while revolving around each other) In one scene, a man ties an elastic strap to his steering wheel and door handle and then steps out of the vehicle which continues to drive itself around in circles. When the strap unexpectedly comes off, the ute goes out of control and almost collides with a second vehicle.

Children in this age group may also be scared by the above-mentioned scenes

Younger children in this age group may also be scared by some of the above-mentioned scenes

Nothing of concern for this age group

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• Brand-named cars and beers

Sexual references

The film contains frequent sexual references and innuendo scattered throughout Examples include:

• A man says to a woman “If you don’t get a root tonight it’s a year until the next one.”  The woman replies, “I can wait”.
• A young woman in reference to being sexually attracted to a young man says “I want to play with his mouth.”
• A man tells a woman “I love the way you’re always up for it.”
• A man tells another man “My legs are a little bit trembly from rooting your mum all night.”      
• A woman says to a man “Take me big fella, take me to sugarland”.
• We hear a man and pregnant woman discussing how the woman must tell her partner that her unborn baby is not his.
• We hear the comment made “if your man wants to root, he should just grab her and kiss her.”
• A young man says to a young woman “You want a root? May as well get it out of the way.” “Are we setting each other up with roots or what?”
• Talk about a man having sex with sheep.
• After a man rigs several beer kegs up to a windmill, resulting in beer raining down on party-goers, the man makes the comment “My beautiful golden shower.”

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

• A drunk man tells another man “I love you mate” and, when the second man does not entirely comprehend, he says “No, I mean I really love you” to which the second man say “Shit mate”.  In a later scene we see the same two men asleep in the back of a ute cuddling into each other. When they wake up both men state that they don’t remember a thing about the previous night.
• There are a couple of scenes of naked men with genitals hidden.
• There is a photograph of a woman dressed in a low cut bikini top and short shorts. She holds a hunting bow and quiver full of arrows.
• There are several scenes of passionate kissing.   
• A woman hands out condoms to random people.       
• One scene set in a toilet block we hear the sounds of a couple having sex in one cubical while in the next cubical there is the sound of a woman vomiting.    
• On the morning after the ball the ground outside the hall is littered with sleeping and unconscious people in various state of undress. Women’s underwear hangs from a tree.  

Use of substances

The film contains scenes of alcohol use and abuse throughout. A character says that it would take an entire year to recover from the effects of drinking alcohol at the B&S Ball and it is also said that consuming lots of alcohol at a party is the way to “Party Australian style”. Examples of scenes include:

• In one scene we see a young woman drinking multiple shooters of alcohol.
• A man becomes very drunk, dancing in a reckless manner and throwing alcohol into the air and over people.  
• Reference is made that if a man doesn’t win the beer drinking record then he was just ‘another loser with a drinking problem’.
• One scene depicts two very drunk women throwing up in toilet cubicles. After the two women leave their cubicles a third woman asks them if they are leaving to which they reply that they are having another round.
• In one scene a very drunk woman narrowly misses vomiting on a man and vomits on the ground in front of him. A second woman then does vomit on the man.  

Coarse language

The film contains frequent coarse language, name calling and putdowns scattered throughout. Examples include:

• “Root” and “rooting”;  “bloody mind”; “nuts”; “shit”;  “arseholes”; “fucking” and “fucked”;  “bugger”;  “bloody”; “bastard” ; “piss off”; “ bull shit”; “pussies”; “piss weak”; “dunny head”; “prick sniffers”

In a nutshell

Spin Out is a comedy full of Australian themes and characters, targeting an older adolescent and adult audience. Due to the themes, sexual references, coarse language and alcohol abuse the film is not recommended for viewers under 15.

The main message from this movie is that being content and in love with your partner is the most important thing in life. There is also an emphasis on mateship and caring for your friends.

Parents of older children may also wish to discuss the negative and destructive attitudes and behaviours shown in the film and the possible real life consequences.