The first Trailer Park Boys movie had the biggest opening of any English-Canadian movie ever. The boys return to theatres this weekend.
The opening of Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day finds our three incorrigible heroes about to get out of prison, trying to convince the parole board they’re prepared to become upstanding, taxpaying members of society. Julian (John Paul Tremblay) makes the most impressive case of any of them: he shows the board his new diploma in auto mechanics, as well as an eight-page plan for the garage he intends to operate out of his mobile home. He’s even drawn a sketch of what “Success Auto Body” will look like.
The sketch is somewhat inaccurate. It leaves out the stolen prison van Julian is repainting to look like an armoured car, the raccoons eating the rotting fast food strewn about the grass and the unconscious transvestite sleeping off a hangover on a mattress in the alley. And the complete absence of customers.
I am probably not the ideal person to review Countdown to Liquor Day, having never watched a single episode of the long-running TV series. Then again, I get the feeling that these are not characters with a long and complex psychological history. They’re simply lovable losers whose most grandiose dreams are amusingly small-time: When he’s not stealing plastic garbage bins to start up a business selling do-it-yourself pot-growing kits, Ricky (Robb Wells) hopes to finally earn his Grade 12 diploma, while Bubbles (Mike Smith) merely hopes to scrape together enough cash to buy his kittens back from the SPCA. Even in “Lahey Luxury Estates,” the new development created by trailer park supervisor Mr. Lahey (John Dunsworth), the buildings look like they’ll be falling apart in three years, tops.
The humour is crude and lowbrow — the film climaxes with the first car chase I’ve ever seen where, instead of exchanging gunfire, the drivers try to piss on each other — but much of it is undeniably funny. Even the most sordid location, like the “licensed” hamburger stand catering primarily to tranny hookers, is portrayed with affection and the actors each commit to their roles with gusto, especially Dunsworth, who tumbles off the wagon in spectacular fashion.
Plus, even with his head partially shaved (don’t ask), Bubbles lands a girlfriend! Naturally, she likes cats. Her feelings about Rush, however, go unexplored. Fodder for the sequel, I suppose.
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