Canadian Film Review: Men with Brooms (2002)

* * 1/2
Director: Paul Gross
Starring: Paul Gross, Molly Parker, Leslie Nielsen

Not too long ago I caught a few minutes of the television version of Men with Brooms and thought, "Wow, this is really broad and simplistic," and it caught me off guard because I'd always heard generally favourable things about the movie version. Having now seen the film, I have to say that the TV series, while broader and more simple-minded, really isn't that far off, though it does lack the film's scrappy charm.

Canadian Film Review: Gunless (2010)

* * *
Director: William Phillips
Starring: Paul Gross

For some reason, Canadian cinema doesn't have much in the way of a tradition of Westerns. Maybe it's because the genre was already out of vogue with audiences by the time Canadian cinema really started to come to prominence, but it's too bad since the genre is such fertile ground for storytelling. William Phillips' Gunless doesn't really make the most of the possibilities of a Canadian western, but in its broad, genteel way, it's a fairly amusing and certainly very watchable western comedy.

So, "once upon a time in the North..." an American gunslinger rides into a small Canadian frontier town, bound and bleeding from his last confrontation. He's The Montana Kid (Paul Gross) and there's a bounty on his head which means that he has no time to lose, a fact which doesn't seem to deter the townspeople from delaying him at every turn. The local doctor, while removing a bullet from him, rips up his pants, which means he's got to wait for them to come back from the local seamstress or ride out in the clothes he's borrowed from one of local Chinese workers. The blacksmith, after taking it upon himself to tend to The Kid's horse, makes the mistake of calling him "common," which means that as far as The Kid is concerned, they've got to shoot it out. Unfortunately the blacksmith doesn't have a gun. Fortunately Jane Taylor (Sienna Guillory), a local widow, does have a gun but it's in need of major repair before it can be used in a duel. Oh, and she wants him to help her build a windmill before she'll let him have the gun.

The longer he stays, the more involved he gets in local life and, of course, the more involved he becomes with Jane. But when the bounty hunters who have been chasing him - lead by Ben Cutler (Callum Keith Rennie) - finally catch up, he rides off into the sunset, only to have to turn around again when the locals refuse to bow down to Cutler and his gang and enter into a stand-off with them.

If I had to describe Gunless in one word, I'd go with "sitcom-y." The overall atmosphere of the film and the way that the characters interact with each other is very much like something you might see in a traditional three camera sitcom. From the fish out of water premise to the broad, easy humor to the wacky supporting cast (following the big climactic scene one of the locals runs onto the scene and has a tantrum over the fact that they had the shoot-out before he got there), it definitely feels more akin to a TV show than a film.

However, in spite of this, I quite enjoyed Gunless. It isn't challenging in any way, but it's a compentently made film and Paul Gross always makes for an engaging and enjoyable lead. Plus, Callum Keith Rennie is great in the relatively small role of Cutler - and it is small; most of the film's 86 minute running time is dedicated to town hijinks rather than the inherently more intense story of hunters and hunted - even if the film wastes Graham Greene in an even smaller, one-joke role as a liaison to the local RCMP. Gunless is nothing deep, but it's a nice, light entertainment nevertheless.

Canadian Film Review: Passchendaele (2008)

* * 1/2
Director: Paul Gross
Starring: Paul Gross, Caroline Dhavernas, Joe Dinicol

Passchendaele is a better movie than I thought it would be - but now would probably be an appropriate time to mention that when I saw the trailer for it, the first movie it made me think of was Pearl Harbor, so there was really nowhere to go but up. I'm really torn about this movie, which is so good in some respects, but so disappointing in others.

Paul Gross stars (and writes and directs and produces) as Michael Dunne, a shell shocked sergeant sent back to the homefront to recover and act as a recruiting agent. He develops a connection with a nurse, Sarah (Caroline Dhavernas), which inspires him to make it his job to ensure that her asthmatic brother, David (Joe Dinicol), is unable to enlist and go overseas. However, David is involved in a relationship with the daughter of the local doctor, who sees an opportunity to rid himself of an unsuitable suitor by giving him the clean bill of health he needs to get into uniform. When David goes over, Dunne finagles his way back to the front to keep an eye on him. Both men are amongst those sent to take Passchendaele in a bloody, muddy and, as the note at the end of the film reminds us, ultimately futile battle.

There's some good stuff here, but I'm not sure that it belongs all together in one movie. The battle scenes are outstanding, especially when the firefight at Passchendaele degenerates into hand-to-hand combat, a scene which underscores just how insane the whole concept of war really is. The chaos of the battle scenes combined with scenes in which military higher-ups are attempting to strategize while shells are blowing out the walls of their command centre, make for the film's strongest sequence. I would have liked to see more of this movie but, despite the title, the battle for Passchendaele doesn't actually occupy that much of the story.

In the homefront section of the story there are a couple of plot threads which have potential but aren't fully and satisfactorily explored. I liked that the film used Sarah and David to touch on a very real offshoot of warfare, which is the overzealous patriotism and xenophobia that can lead to people turning on their neighbors. Sarah and David are of German descent and at the war's outset their father broke with the family to fight on the German side. Even though they've denounced their father's actions, their house is vandalized, they're treated with scorn by their neighbors, and there's the vague threat that they'll end up in an internment camp. This is the sort of thing that actually happened and I wish that the film had explored it more deeply rather than folding it in as a plot contrivance. There's another thread (even more briefly touched on) which has to do with Sarah's addiction to morphine, something not unheard of amongst WWI nurses and doctors.

If I had to pinpoint my exact problem with this movie, I suppose it would be this: while I have no issue with Gross' acting or direction, I really wish that he had given someone else a pass at writing the screenplay, which is just so heavy-handed. I'm a little reluctant to rag on this because I know that this film was a labor of love for him, but when you produce, write and direct a movie in which you cast yourself as a character that is none too subtly equated with Jesus - complete with a trek across the battlefield while wounded and carrying a cross - it does start to feel like you kind of need to get over yourself and when you make the audience feel that way, it really deflates the impact of the final moments. For my part, when the film reached its conclusion I didn't feel sad as much as I did annoyed at the fact that instead of Passchendaele a more appropriate title would have been The Passion of Paul Gross.