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The Appropriate Tune - "Heavy Metal Love" by Helix
College is a formative year for many of us. Taking classes in unique subjects in order to broaden our horizons or experimenting zexually or with mind-altering substances in order to expand our consciousness. Personally I ate a lot of sbarros and watched TV, but in my defense it was pretty good TV. Twin Peaks, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, we’re talking primo, netflix-before-it-lost-all-the-good-shit material here. Sure you could say I was wasting my life, but I was doing it while also being fat and depressed, and you can’t put a price on those kinds of memories.
Twin Peaks and all them couldn’t hold a candle to Trailer Park Boys though, at least on a personal level. I watched every episode, every movie, the Christmas special, saw their live show, I even sat through that shitty side project they did where they tried to be Little Britain. When their revival on Netflix began I was initially very excited, I had probably watched the original series in its entirety twice over by that point, but as it went on that eagerness steadily decreased. I was hanging on by a thread when the one-two punch of John Dunsworth (who played Jim Lahey in the series) dying and the fucking F is for Family looking ass cartoon finally killed my interest, and I broke away. I don’t follow what they’re doing now, and I don’t care to know, but because of that original run, and the memories, TPB will always have a place in my heart. And that’s just the way she goes.
So if you’re wondering why I reviewed that weird Trailer Park Boys pseudo-pilot that no one cares about almost a decade ago, it’s because that was the only bit of related media that I hadn’t seen up to that point. As it’s been almost a decade though, and I’m starting to relax my stance on only doing first-impression reviews, and because I didn’t feel like covering a Christmas movie, I decided why not tackle the actual Trailer Park Boys movie? I mean a lot of us spend the holidays drunk and/or high anyway, might as well watch how the professionals do it.
Released in 2006, Trailer Park Boys: The Movie was directed by Mike Clattenburg, written by Clattenburg and Robb Wells, and produced by Clattenburg and Ivan Reitman through Trailer Park Productions and Topsail Entertainment. Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay and Mike Smith star as Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles: career criminals and documentary subjects (Julian’s idea) that reside at Sunnyvale trailer park in Nova Scotia. After their latest get rich quick scheme ends up going south, some destruction of property, robbing a tobacco store, typical stuff, Ricky and Julian are arrested and sentenced to 18 months in the local correctional facility. Not a big problem, Ricky and Julian have been to jail plenty of times, but when the duo get out they find things have changed for the worse. Lucy, Ricky’s on-again off-again girlfriend seems to have moved on, as his daughter Trinity has moved into the lucrative field of stealing barbecue grills. Trailer park supervisor Jim Lahey and his assistant/lover Randy are down their throats, looking for every opportunity to get them out of Sunnyvale and into prison. Not to mention they don't have any money, and you can’t get a proper weed operation going without a sizable investment upfront. What’s a trio of weirdos and crooks to do that doesn’t involve actual work? Common sense might suggest going for petty crimes to avoid the attention of the cops, or you could go for The Big Dirty: one last job with a haul big enough to retire on. Guess which one we go for?
TPB: TM occupies a weird space within the canon of the show. By the time of its release the show was a year away from its original conclusion, but rather than reflecting the ‘world’ as it was at that time, the film is more a reboot of the first season. The setup of Ricky and Julian returning to Sunnyvale after being in prison and Ricky having to rekindle his relationship with Lucy reconnect with his daughter, Julian getting into a relationship with another ex-con etc., with some noticeable differences like giving Bubbles greater prominence (he was only a minor character in S1). But it’s also not a reboot/retelling because they never show Julian hiring the documentary crew, even though they still do the cut-away interviews, and they do those cut-away interviews despite the fact the film isn’t filmed like a documentary whatsoever. I feel that the intent was to capture the essence of the show for moviegoers who had never seen it, which I suppose it does generally speaking, but for those who have seen the show something definitely feels off. Reminds me of Guest House Paradiso, Bottom’s feature film in every way but name. Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson played their characters from Bottom, they did jokes you’d have seen in Bottom, but because it’s removed however slightly from the Bottom formula the whole thing is thrown off-kilter. Looks pretty though.
The cast of the movie are the people from the show, with the notable exception of Trinity who was recast, likely to more closely resemble the character’s age from season 1. Everyone is exactly as you remember them from the show as well, but an extra tip of the hat has to go to Robb Wells. While TPB has always been an ensemble show by this point in its history Ricky was definitely who a lot of the story revolved around, and the film isn’t much different. Ironic though, since season 1 was built around Julian and now in this new version of events he feels like more of an ancillary character than Corey and Trevor. Ricky is a manchild, but he’s the kind of manchild Seth McFarlane wishes he could have written; Unintelligent, boorish, with very little in the way of impulse control, but possessed with a fierce love for his family, friends and community and simple joy de vivre that Thoreau would have appreciated after a joint or two. All of which Wells portrays with a confidence and sincerity that makes him lovable and relatable. You might not want to be Ricky, but I think many of us at one point in our lives wished we had a friend like him. If they could have cut some of Ricky’s screen time to give more lines to J-Roc I wouldn’t have complained.
A theatrical budget doesn’t just mean fancy new camera angles and warmer color grading either, it means a hot soundtrack! All those bands connected with the series make an appearance, Rush, Helix, April Wine, as well as several tracks by Canadian alt-rock band The Tragically Hip. There’s something surreal about watching a scene where the boys are about to start their crime and hearing the first 10 seconds of Spirit of Radio, as the show had conditioned the audience to not expect any music that isn’t pumped through a muffled car speaker. Solid choices though.
It is disappointing that there isn’t a real scheme. One of the thing that became a staple of TPB was the unique get rich quick schemes that the boys would try to pull over the course of a season, like repaving a driveway in hash so that they could hide it in plain sight, or building a large model train track across the Canadian-American border so that they could smuggle drugs across. Considering the characters go on and on about The Big Dirty you’d expect it be more involved, but the actual heist scene takes like 5 minutes. It’s funny I guess, but also a bit anticlimactic given the way the show would descend into chaos at the end of every season. We do get to see some car stunts by the end, courtesy of that movie budget, but it feels like a consolation prize since they couldn’t figure out a good way to get the boys in trouble. Lahey doesn’t go as much off the liquor-fueled deep end either as viewers had grown accustomed to, which was a major source of that chaos in the show. Aside from the naked breasts, and I’m not talking about Randy, everything comes across as very tame. Ricky and Julian don’t even fire their guns I believe, which for a TPB fan tells you everything you need to know about that.
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie is the cliff notes version of Trailer Park Boys: the show. It introduces you to all the characters you need to know, shows what they’re all about, presents a typical kind of plot and then wraps everything up. If you had never seen Trailer Park Boys and didn’t want to dedicate the time to a then 6 season show, then this movie gives you an approximate experience with no muss or fuss. For a seasoned TPB fan however there’s less meat on the bone, beyond the novelty that comes with the silver screen. It likely comes as no surprise that I’m giving it the recommendation, but compared to the original run of the show and the movies afterwards it’s sort of an also-ran, which you should factor into your viewing priorities. Also the amount of liquor, dope, chicken fingers and pepperoni you’re consuming at the time, and whether you have any cigarettes. In any case, Happy Holidays and a Merry New Year to everyone! If I don’t die I’ll see you in October.
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