>>REVIEW
THE LIFE AND HARD TIMES OF GUY TERRIFICO
STARRING Matt Murphy, Natalie Radford, Kris Kristofferson
DIRECTED BY Michael Mabbott
Opens Friday, January 20
Uptown Screen
The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico marks the debut for writer-director Michael Mabbott, as well as being the first starring role for Matt Murphy, a familiar name to Canadian music fans as the singer for The SuperFriendz and Flashing Lights. That Murphy plays a country musician in the style of Gram Parsons in this mockumentary perhaps makes his transition from stage to screen that much smoother.
Spinal Tap is the standard to which all other musical stories – especially those told in this vérité style – must measure up. While Guy Terrifico falls short of this mark, it still has a great deal of charm and humour – and some of the best songs Murphy (who co-writes most of the movie’s music with Mabbott) has sung in years.
And really, it’s the songs that give substance to the story of Guy Terrifico, a drinkin’ and cussin’ musical renegade who, legend has it, gets shot at the height of his career. So many musical legends, many of which are true, are crammed into this film that it needs a really great soundtrack to keep it from being one big in-joke, and songs like "Worth a Song" and "Saturday Night" are good and authentic enough to ground the tale.
Guest appearances by legendary country outlaws like Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson and Levon Helm, as well as Canadian mainstays like Ronnie Hawkins, lend an air of authenticity to the proceedings and it’s a hoot to hear them bend their tall tales to create Guy’s mythology.
Some elements of Guy Terrifico go so far into caricature that they detract from the rest of the film. Guy’s backup singer-turned-mistress (Jane Sowerby) turns up in a trailer park with a mouth so foul that it doesn’t sound natural. Similarly, playing the midgets-are-crazy-partiers line is lame. Still, Mabbott offsets these transgressions with some genuinely funny ideas and stories, including the accidental manoeuvre that becomes Guy’s trademark.
While Bring It Back Home, the soundtrack to The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, outshines the movie itself, the film is more entertaining than most of this genre. It places both Murphy and Mabbott in the enviable position of being expected to make followup films that are even better. |
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