Canadian Bacon (1995)

Michael Moore

USA

91 mins, color, English

Canadians: They Walk Among Us!

An utterly harmless and somewhat funny political parody starring the ubiquitous John Candy, the king of lowbrow humor, and the no less ubiquitous (and very scary) Rhea Perlman (wife to the scariest of them all, Danny DeVito).

After the end of the Cold War, the US president (Alan Alda - the guy who plays the President of the United States in the film, not the President) finds his political fortunes waning. The electorate does not seem to like him at all --- well, actually the electorate seems not to care about him one way or the other --- and his program of drastic reductions in military spending is upsetting both rich Republicans and red-blooded, red-necked, anti-Red local patriots in Buffalo, NY, that bastion of patriotism, and the first line of defense against the blood-thirsty but smartly polite Canadians.

To revive his ratings, the President tries to get the Russians to play along in a little international crisis or at least an European summit, but the Ruskies are as uncooperative as always. First they wouldn't cooperate on the US winning the world, and now the won't cooperate on the US running it. Bastards. KFC-eating ingrates.

So, the US has to find a new enemy, and since nobody is willing to be one, the National Security Advisor (Kevin Pollak) invents one: Canada! Yes, the neighbors to the north, the 51st state, the people who are just like the Americans except they don't have guns and are cultured. These minions of socialism have infiltrated American society in an apparent attempt to eventually annex North Dakota. The political machine spins into high gear as the TV propaganda intensifies and brands the northern commies like the lurking threat that they have always been. Mounted or not.

Unfortunately, the scheme works too well when Niagara County Sheriff Bud (John Candy) along with girlfriend Deputy Honey (Rhea Perlman), and a bunch of no less enthusiastic nimrods sails across the lake to litter a public park but get busted by two mounties who let the group go while dsicussing whether it is proper to end a sentence with a preposition. The group escapes but leaves Honey behind, so they have to do another commando raid to rescue her. The efforts of the US government to take them out before they turn the new Cold War into a very hot one, fail. The Republican weapons mogul Hunter uses the whole crisis to create a little crisis on his own by making it appear as if the Canadians are trying to launch remotely the US ballistic missiles targeted at Russia, thereby starting World War III. His idea is to blackmail the President for the launch sequence codes.

A pretty neat idea (at least in 1995, when it wasn't obvious that there's no shortage of enemies the US could go after) that was more seriously exploited in Wag the Dog recently, the diversionary war theory has never really worked well in practice (witness daddy Bush winning an entire hot war and getting booted out of office, something that will probably happen to the heir to the throne as well). I was very partial to the exchange between the President and General Dick Panzer (Rip Torn sporting a very appropriate name):

President: I can't kill America's neighbors.
General (enthusiatically): I can!

Anyway, that's not what the movie is all about really.

The movie is about stereotypes. The polite, harmless, vaguely socialist Canadians who seem to be so content in their lives as to be completely imperturbable. That's only somewhat offensive. The Americans: stupid, oafish, gullible & manipulable, armed & dangerous, sneaky, racist lowlifes who love, and I mean love their country. That's quite offensive, but this is what the film tries to play on. It sometimes succeeds but most often not, mostly because it resorts to gags that are too obvious to work well.

Now that I think about it, I have to check if the director is Canadian... those sneaky bastards.

Worth a watch or two, the film is only in my DVD collection because they were giving it away at $5. The DVD itself is unremarkable: good quality, no extras whatsoever except a stupid trailer. For serious fans of John Candy only. I don't imagine there are serious fans of Rhea Perlman.

March 10, 2003