Men With Brooms | Review

Date:

Maple leaf comedy that lacks punch.

It is refreshing to see that Canadian films have finally found their way into the mega jumbo Cineplex’s and have established a small occupancy in a film market that is dominated by our southern neighbours. Men with Brooms is tattooed and stamped with the Canadian maple leaf and is a production that with the actors, the music and the beer bottles screams-oh Canada! Paul Gross’ directorial debut is not a film about the Y chromosome gender and home maintenance it’s about the sport of curling- think Molson’s “I Am Canadian” ads without the hockey sticks.

Personally, I’ve always been leery of sports-themed films because it dreadfully fails to capture the authenticity and true drama of a real sporting event; maybe it is the way-too-many-crowd reaction shots or the fact that viewer enthusiasm is harder to generate when the final results are exaggeratedly obvious. This film falls into the same category, with a plot smothered in gag humour and stupid human tricks, and don’t leave out the ever-so-popular guys-gets-girl romantic guck and as an added bonus, there is heavy Canadian drama. The latter part of the equation seems misplaced and inappropriate and rubs off in a worst way possible with the ineffective performance from up and coming actress Molly Parker (Kissed) who brings most of her dramatic expertise into a character that simply irritates the viewer with a personal battle over alcoholism.

The rest of the film consists of rocks, broomsticks and foul-mouthed, beer-drinking small town folk of the fictitious town of Long Bay. Leslie Nielsen (Forbidden Planet), who has seen better days as an actor, is the Ben Kenobi with a barnyard training camp who gets the curlers- including Paul Gross (Cold Comfort) as Chris Cutter, ready for their big tournament. The rest of the narrative offers plenty of plumped together minor subplots, which come across as a bunch of annoyances and do very little for character development or for the overall direction of the film. But despite, these annoyances, this was a decent attempt at making a red and white version of Quebec’s own successful drivel film trilogy Les Boys. But in the end, Men with Brooms falls far from becoming a comedy with edge and the humour comes nowhere close to the comedic ingenuity of a Kids in the Hall (perhaps, this is an unfair comparison), so I guess I’ll just stick to the heavy dramatic films of Egoyan or the sci-fi freak shows of Cronenberg. Oh, and what’s with this disturbing new trend of a film being funnier in the end credits than within its entirety?

Rating 1 stars

Eric Lavallée
Eric Lavalléehttps://www.ericlavallee.com
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson’s "This Teacher" (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). He is a Golden Globes Voter, member of the ICS (International Cinephile Society) and AQCC (Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma).

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