Canadian Bacon
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Movie Reviews of Canadian Bacon
Movie Review: Sounds better than it films
Summary: 3 Stars
The Bottom Line:
If someone described to you the scenarios and jokes of Canadian Bacon you would probably think the film is a work of comic genius, for a lot of the gags are quite clever; unfortunately, however, Michael Moore's lone foray into non-documentary filmmaking reveals a lack of understanding about what makes for good comedy and satire, so the film regrettably remains clever on the page but fairly lackluster on screen.
2.5/4
Movie Review: Shrill and offensive
Summary: 2 Stars
None other than the leftist fire breather Michael Moore lensed "Canadian Bacon," a film that turned into a huge box office bomb. That should serve as the first warning to potential viewers interested in viewing this film. If it doesn't, many other red flags pop up as the movie unfolds. Apparently, some genius in Hollywood thought Moore's documentaries meant that the guy could do a feature film. Wrong. "Canadian Bacon," while boasting an occasionally funny scene or two, is nothing more than propaganda served up on a celluloid bun. The film stars Alan Alda, Kevin Pollack, John Candy (in one of his last film performances, a fact in and of itself noteworthy for fans of the Canadian comedian), Rhea Perlman, Rip Torn, G.D. Spradlin, Stephen Wright, and a host of other familiar faces. With a cast like this, you would think the movie would be an outright tour de force. Wrong again. Before watching this film, you should probably join the National Rifle Association, vote Republican, or simply fly an American flag for a few weeks. Whatever you do, do something to offset this unpleasant slice of good old left wing hate.Alan Alda plays an American president in trouble with the voting public. With the end of the Cold War and the attendant downsizing of the defense industry, lots of red-blooded American citizens are now out of work, and unemployed workers tend to vote for the other guy. What is a corrupt politician to do? According to Moore, the solution lies in creating a new enemy against which the American people can rally. After a failed attempt to restart a conflict with the tottering Soviet Union, the president and his slimy advisors set their sights on Canada. Urged on by his National Security Advisor Stuart Smiley (Pollack) and General Richard Panzer (Torn), the president sets into motion a flurry of anti-Canadian measures. Before too long, the media joins the fray by broadcasting thinly veiled slurs against the Great White North. An ugly incident at a hockey game in Canada, where American Sheriff Bud Boomer (Candy) starts a riot when he casts an aspersion on Canadian beer, further stokes the fires back home. Everything is really starting to work in the president's favor: the voters rapidly forget about the nation's economic troubles and begin arming themselves to stave off a possible invasion from Canada.
When a few Americans decide to take matters into their own hands and invade Canada themselves, the real trouble starts. Bud Boomer, his girlfriend Honey (Perlman), and a few other brain dead hicks sneak across the border to cause a little disturbance. When some Canadian cops interrupt the fun, the Americans flee back into the United States without realizing they left Honey behind. This mistake leads Boomer and his companions to reinvade Canada in search of their beloved woman, a mission loaded with lots of humorous situations comparing the stupidity and aggressiveness of Americans with the simplicity and friendliness of Canadians. Meanwhile, back in Washington, D.C., the evil corporate boss R.J. Hacker (Spradlin) spurs the White House on in their fake little war games. He tells Stuart Smiley that he sold the Canadians a doomsday device that has the capacity to launch American missiles at the former Soviet Union. Hacker will sell the code to defuse the weapon to the government for a paltry sum of a few billion dollars. What started out as a political ploy to carry the next election has suddenly turned into a scenario involving all out nuclear war.
I am willing to overlook a bit of cant in a movie from time to time, but the avalanche of propaganda in "Canadian Bacon" is simply a wonder to behold. Moore skewers everything he hates about America: guns, the military, corporations, the media, patriots, and just about everything else under the sun. R.J. Hacker comes off as a power mad lunatic, the politicians are manipulative cynics, and the movie tars the average American with a generous coating of stupidity and blind patriotism. The latter is surprising since Moore consistently presents himself as the mouthpiece of the downtrodden American worker. But there is the director himself in one scene of the movie, carrying an assault rifle and mouthing jingoistic platitudes about wiping out the Canadians as if to put an exclamation point on his messages. As difficult as it is to swallow these sequences of truly nauseating hate, the movie as a whole is even worse because it isn't funny. Sure, a few scenes made me laugh out loud: the CIA spook outlining the sinister secrets of Canada is a real hoot, as are several of the encounters between Boomer's "army" and Canadian citizens. Overall, however, the movie tanks due to its shrill tone.
The American public knew better than to buy into this junk when the movie opened back in the mid 1990s. Moore's recent popularity has inspired a few revisionists to resurrect this mediocre effort in order to sing its praises. Most people who speak about "Canadian Bacon" now refer to its prescience concerning the existing administration in the White House--and do so without a trace of irony--as though America's forty-second president didn't try and distract the public from his scandal plagued regime by launching missiles into Afghanistan and Africa. I admit Moore scores some points in this movie, but those barbs jab both ways, folks. Watch "Canadian Bacon" for a few select scenes and try to ignore the movie as a whole.
Movie Review: Poor Satire of the U.S., Non-Satire of Canada
Summary: 2 Stars
I have noted that opinions of this movie tend to be more negative in Canada. Some Canadians who miss the point of this movie dislike it because they take offence. But they are in the minority. There is no way a film could fill up with so many Canadian actors if it were anti-Canadian, and Michael Moore has great admiration for Canada (where, unlike the U.S., you can easily find reviews of his books in national dailies and national news programs). In actual fact, the film more often tends to exaggerate how perfect Canada supposedly is. No, most Canadians know that the actual target of this film is the U.S. The real problem with the film is that it does a poor job of imitating a form of Canadian humour, and as a result, much of its satirical content is weak and underdeveloped.One source of much humour in Canada is the large degree of ignorance there is in the U.S. about Canadian culture. There's even a series of TV specials called "Speaking With Americans" in which U.S. citizens (including Congressmen!) are asked questions (and get serious answers!) about such pressing Canadian issues as the melting of the national igloo (which, in case you don't know, doesn't exist).
Besides the proximity of the U.S., the reason why such humour is so pervasive is that it illustrates how one of the most powerful countries in the world is also dangerously self-centered. For example, U.S. politicians believe that they are right to impose U.S. values (not American values -- "America" refers to all of North and South America) on foreign countries, including its economic models, etc., while failing to recognize its imperfections or inapplicability to different cultures and countries. Many economies in Africa and South America have been ruined as a result of such impositions by the World Bank. U.S. politicians also seem to have the singular ability to fail to learn from models of other countries, creating programs which have failed elsewhere and avoiding programs which have worked elsewhere. The U.S. also fails to recognize the imporance of many international needs (e.g. the Kyoto Accord) out of pure self-interest. Lest you think I am being unfair, Canada itself is not perfect (our medical system, although far superior to the U.S.'s, has its major problems), and I would in fact hold some European countries to be better models than either the U.S. or Canada, but what some people ignorantly refer to as Canada's low self-esteem is in fact our greater recognition of ourselves as part of an international community, and our resultant ability to admit to our own imperfections while recognizing it in others as well. We make fun of the U.S. because in many ways the U.S. is frightening and dangerous.
But while U.S. self-centeredness drives much of the action in this movie with its story of the U.S. government targeting Canada as a hostile country, its satire never reaches such a high level as the similar "Wag the Dog" or any of Moore's documentaries by getting lost in one of the symptoms. For example, its exaggeration of how great our energy system is, while also ignoring our own problems, does little to point out how privatization created the energy crisis in California or profited such pirates as Enron.
These days the film can be seen as a prediction of Bush's careless increase of international tensions with promises of war against Iraq (yes, Saddam is a monster, but Bush's war has little to do with reality) and his careless increase of tensions with North Korea. However, with the film's focus upon U.S. misperceptions of Canada (a comparatively unimportant symptom of the U.S.'s disease), such serious issues as U.S. foreign policy are not given the focus they deserve as we instead, e.g., witness parodies of our language laws (what I find funniest about the graffiti scene is the RCMP officer's lack of concern over the anti-Canadian messages, thus denying the U.S. invaders the desired effect, and not his admonition that it also needs to also be in French).
To be fair, the U.S. isn't completely self-blinded. Admittedly, while the U.S. has movies like "Wag the Dog", "Bob Robertson", etc., I have yet to see a great satirical movie about Canada or Canadian politics. "Canadian Bacon", which is only about perceptions of Canada fails to fill this bill. It is far too divorced from reality.
Ultimately, this movie only has some minor chuckles and a couple of good laughs going for it, but it isn't great comedy or satire and accomplishes little of what it sets out to do.
Movie Review: Moore Liberal Bull
Summary: 1 Stars
Give me a break! Thankfully I saw this movie on the Movie Channel, since I wouldn't pay a penny to see it. This movie proves Michael Moore's love of Canada and his hate towards America. While I was watching it, my visiting mother was in the next room and not really paying attention, but she was laughing because she thought this movie was making fun of Canada, but no Michael Moore could never make fun of his precious Canada. Although there are some Canadaian stereotypes expressed in this movie, the underlying message is that the government (I assume Alan Alda is a Republican president) is stupid and needs an enemy to gain popularity. So who better an enemy than Canada? I think it was Rhea Perlman's character who said, "Do you smell anything?" and John Candy's character replied, "Nothing." meaning that they were in Canada and that Canada is so clean that they didn't smell any pollution. And then there is another comparison between the US and Canada, looking from clean, wonderful Canada, John Candy and Rhea Perlman look across a river to the US and see a factory with smoke stacks bellowing smoke into the sky and say proudly, "Home." Another scene that makes me sick is when there's a sign outside of a gun store that says "FREE GUNS" and there's a line of people and they all recieve a free gun. What does this scene say about us, we're all gun nuts? and all have guns? Guess what, there's guns is Canada too. Don't waste your time with this "movie", at least Michael Moore isn't trying to pass off 'Canadian Bacon' as a documentary like he did with 'Bowling for Columbine'. GEORGE W. BUSH IN 2004!Movie Review: The Spirit of Canada
Summary: 1 Stars
Canada. United States of America. Two countries so similar it's sick. For the life of me. Canadian actor, John Candy, should be ashamed to act in a film like this. There is a lot of hilarious things about people from the United States who reside in Canada or Canadians who reside in the U.S. I would know, I am one of those Canadians. I am also a filmmaker, an independent one but, a filmmaker. If I was to make a film in Canada (which I most diffinently will), I will make it so that the U.S. can see what Canada's really "ABOOT." I have never seen one film that took place in a Canadian city. I've seen to many movies that take place in New York and L.A. and Texas and England and Africa (those are where all films take place now a days.) I don't ever see a movie that really takes place in Canada and shows Canadian life. Which to me, is very interesting. There is so much to see in Canada and Canadian life. Rather than joking about legal aliens and illegal aliens and who's country is better, both countries are valuable partners of trade. A cold war would send both nations into a complete depression even though the United States has the bombs!! It's funny, but, one day I will show what it really is like in Canada.