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Saw this film today and I recommend it to any Canadian film goers. For those who haven't heard about it yet, it's being billed as the first English-French Bilingual Canadian film. Starring popular Quebecois actor-comedian Patrick Huard and the Boston born but Stratford, Ontario based, classically trained Colm Feore, this film comes from the Lethal Weapon mold, but contains enough elements to be distinctly Canadian.
The story begins with the discovery of a corpse along the Ontario-Quebec border. Huard's tough guy Bouchard and Feore's by-the-book Ward arrive at the scene to find the victim's body lying on a "Welcome to Ontario / Bienvenue a Quebec" billboard. After a brief argument over jursidiction ("His heart's in Quebec"..."And his ass belongs to you.") the two detectives find themselves up against a serial killer targeting members of the hockey community. While this film does follow most of the genre's cliches, it plays with them and adds some Canadian flavour.
Bon Cop Bad Cop features many inside jokes that only Canadians would get. There's the hockey references, such as Rick Mercer playing a tough-talking big-egoed hockey commentator that has difficulty pronouncing names that aren't in English named Tom Berry, as well as the commissioner of the hockey league, Harry Buttman. They also refer to a certain number 88 who screwed over a Quebec hockey team because he wanted to play for Toronto but instead got shipped to Philadelphia. There's also the inherent rivalry between Francophones and Anglophones. In one clever segment, the two characters decide that they'll speak French when they're in Quebec and speak English when they're in the rest of Canada, except for some regions of New Brunswick.
The film does a good job of being bilingual as advertised. The Quebec version of the film was released with English subtitles and the Anglo version has subtitles for the French bits. Both languages are well represented, but it's done naturally and doesn't seem forced. There are some jokes however that don't translate from one language to the other, so only a bilingual viewer is likely to catch all of the jokes.
Feore and Huard have excellent chemistry and their interaction alone makes the film worth watching. Well, there's also a pretty good sex scene which brings a different image to the phrase "Vive le Quebec libre!"
Bon Cop, Bad Cop isn't a great film, and does nothing new to the genre. The banter between the two leads is very entertaining, but many of the best action scenes feature each actor working on his own.
That being said, this is the kind of movie that the Canadian film industry needs to make more of. While it does follow the well-worn Lethal Weapon formula, it is a fun action-comedy, as opposed to the Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg, artsy, cerebral films that we're used to. The chemistry between Huard and Feore is excellent, and we get enough of a taste of their backgrounds and supporting characters that a sequel would be very possible, especially if this film does well across Canada.
This film opened in Quebec two weeks ago, and opened in the rest of the country yesterday. An American release isn't likely though. But for Canucks, it's worth watching.
The story begins with the discovery of a corpse along the Ontario-Quebec border. Huard's tough guy Bouchard and Feore's by-the-book Ward arrive at the scene to find the victim's body lying on a "Welcome to Ontario / Bienvenue a Quebec" billboard. After a brief argument over jursidiction ("His heart's in Quebec"..."And his ass belongs to you.") the two detectives find themselves up against a serial killer targeting members of the hockey community. While this film does follow most of the genre's cliches, it plays with them and adds some Canadian flavour.
Bon Cop Bad Cop features many inside jokes that only Canadians would get. There's the hockey references, such as Rick Mercer playing a tough-talking big-egoed hockey commentator that has difficulty pronouncing names that aren't in English named Tom Berry, as well as the commissioner of the hockey league, Harry Buttman. They also refer to a certain number 88 who screwed over a Quebec hockey team because he wanted to play for Toronto but instead got shipped to Philadelphia. There's also the inherent rivalry between Francophones and Anglophones. In one clever segment, the two characters decide that they'll speak French when they're in Quebec and speak English when they're in the rest of Canada, except for some regions of New Brunswick.
The film does a good job of being bilingual as advertised. The Quebec version of the film was released with English subtitles and the Anglo version has subtitles for the French bits. Both languages are well represented, but it's done naturally and doesn't seem forced. There are some jokes however that don't translate from one language to the other, so only a bilingual viewer is likely to catch all of the jokes.
Feore and Huard have excellent chemistry and their interaction alone makes the film worth watching. Well, there's also a pretty good sex scene which brings a different image to the phrase "Vive le Quebec libre!"
Bon Cop, Bad Cop isn't a great film, and does nothing new to the genre. The banter between the two leads is very entertaining, but many of the best action scenes feature each actor working on his own.
That being said, this is the kind of movie that the Canadian film industry needs to make more of. While it does follow the well-worn Lethal Weapon formula, it is a fun action-comedy, as opposed to the Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg, artsy, cerebral films that we're used to. The chemistry between Huard and Feore is excellent, and we get enough of a taste of their backgrounds and supporting characters that a sequel would be very possible, especially if this film does well across Canada.
This film opened in Quebec two weeks ago, and opened in the rest of the country yesterday. An American release isn't likely though. But for Canucks, it's worth watching.