by Jason Daniel Baker

Created on: June 08, 2008   Last Updated: June 09, 2008

Bon Cop Bad Cop (2006) Starring Colm Feore, Patrick Huard, Jayne Heitmeyer, Lucie Laurier, Rick Mercer, Nanette Workman.

Directed by Eric Canuel.

Running time: 116 minutes.

Rating PG-13

A darkly comic thrillride on par with Hollywood's best.

After a crime is committed right on the border between Quebec and Ontario, it makes sense (the movie kind of sense) for the cops from each province who are assigned to the case to join forces whether they want to or not. Quebec cop David Bouchard (Patrick Huard) and OPP cop Martin Ward (Colm Feore) couldn't be more different in their styles but they make the situation work for them in tracking a serial killer of NHL players.

Feore and Huard are effective here playing up stereotypes of their respective province's cultures as are the rest of the cast. The only actor in this movie that seems as full of himself as a Hollywood star is Rick Mercer who has a much higher tolerance for the cliches of his own persona than I do. Why couldn't they have shown more of Jayne Heitmeyer? Is it because they know it is never enough for those of us with crushes?

The production team behing this did not invent the genre of cop/buddy movie with this cinematic concoction they just did it better than it has been done before. Solid work in the vein of Starsky & Hutch (the cutting edge TV series not the lame Ben Stiller movie) and the French film My New Partner.

An estimated $8 million (must be a record for a Canadian film) went in to making this flick. I have been saying for years that Canadian stories are well worth the feature film treatment. This one is proof if you go by what is onscreen.

I hope people don't judge this film solely on the basis of what it makes at the box office. My fear is that the trap this movie will fall into is the same one that a lot of Canadian films fall into: potential audiences will wait for it to premiere on TV knowing that broadcasters will show it countless times in future in order to meet Canadian content quotas to retain their CRTC broadcasting licenses.

Theatre owners in Canada have said that they could show Canadian films in big theatres but that the seats would remain empty. I do not think that is always true. I think sadly that is just mostly true.

I think that it makes better sense to give fatter tax breaks to second run theatres that show Canadian films to keep our historic old movie houses in business showing the best this country has to offer rather than others because I can't think of a better way to try to save both.

I also hope there is a sequel to this, Canada's first truly bilingual, bicultural movie.

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