List Price:   $14.98 Price:   find out more information

Buy posters from this movie

Canadian Bacon is a mess, plain and simple. This was the last John Candy movie to be released (although he died on the set of "Wagons East", another piss-poor effort), and it didn't bring on any excess mourning on anybody's part. Seeing this waste of space, maybe some folks were glad he wasn't going to be making any more movies like this one.

Note to all John Candy fans: Shut up. I love John Candy, and I bet I could recite "Uncle Buck" way better than you could. I'm Canadian. We have to be able to memorize at least one film made by an SCTV cast member. It's the law. It was either that one or "Armed and Dangerous".

Canadian Bacon is the story of a wimp president (Alan Alda) who decides to boost his popularity by declaring war on Canada, a strictly political move. A group of Niagara Falls police officers (led by Candy, and Rhea Perlman) take it a bit too seriously, and invade the Great White North, with mayhem ensuing as a result, along with a lot of jokes about how polite Canadians are. And how they only get mad if you tell them that their beer is lousy. Oh ho ho.

Oddly enough, the jokes in the film seem geared more towards Canadian audiences than American audiences. I mean, do Americans really know who Gordon Lightfoot is? You do? Jesus. Gearing ANYTHING towards Canadian audiences is a surefire way to guarantee a film's failure. Just look at the success outside Canada of "Men With Brooms", this Spring's hit curling movie. Of course you haven't heard of it.

Sadly, though, it doesn't matter who the jokes are geared towards. Everything is done with a complete lack of directorial style and/or talent. Moore is used to pointing his camera at whomever's talking at the moment and then whip-panning over to whomever responds. He can't direct comedy, he can barely write it (some of the anti-Canada ads are very funny, but the dialogue is abysmal), and most of the time, the audience spends its time wondering when the laughs are going to start.

*Apparently, the ending was changed as a result of Candy's death. No word on what it was before, although I can't see it affecting the film's quality that much*

Perhaps my negative view of the film comes from my general dislike of Moore himself. I find him funny sometimes, but I think he uses his position of "Spokesman for the little guy" to become more of a "Fat Rich Guy". He lives in the same neighbourhood as celebrities, he makes millions of dollars at book-signings and personal appearances, yet he still tries to portray himself as Joe Average, sticking up for the little guy. It doesn't work, Mike. You never saw Gandhi at Cannes, hanging with Hugh Hefner.

There's not a lot one can say about Canadian Bacon. It's not a good movie, it's in NO way a lasting final testimony to the talent of John Candy (although it's not as bad as "The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu", Peter Sellers' last movie), and all it does is makes you want to rent a good Michael Moore movie; one where he sticks to making executivess look like assholes. Which may have been his plan all along. After all, some studio executive greenlighted THIS shitpile.

Rent a good John Candy movie instead. There's plenty.

Share |

link directly to this review at http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=807&reviewer=27
originally posted: 06/25/02 23:34:21
 printer-friendly format