Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Lisa and I walked up the red carpet last night into the Montreal Opera House and got to watch the official premiere of Bon Cop Bad Cop, a movie I rewrote a summer ago. It was fun. The audience laughed in the right places, and the thriller parts were energetic. Patrick Huard was charming and funny and Colm Feore was perfect: relaxed as an actor playing an uptight character. Watching Colm Feore play an uptight cop stoned out of his mind (they've been caught in a burning marijuana plantation) ought to be worth the price of admission.

Of course, some of the things I rewrote out of the script got re-written back into it. Some of the things I liked had to be cut for production. Filmmaking is not a perfect art. So half of me enjoyed the picture while the other half grumbled at some of the choices. I doubt there's a writer in the world who doesn't experience that watching a movie he worked on.

Everyone's big question is how the film will do. In Quebec there's been a huge marketing push, and many of the funniest performances are the ones in French. It ought to do huge business here. But how will it do in R.O.C. (the Rest of Canada)? I didn't notice ads for it when I was in Toronto. If there is an appetite for a bilingual buddy cop comedy about hockey murders, this film ought to hit big. But you never know what the audience wants until they turn out.

Labels: Bon Cop

9:47 AM

4 Comments:

If I hadn't heard about this film straight from the horse's mouth, I never would've found out about it, Alex. It's getting ZERO promotion in Ottawa, and I didn't hear a peep about it from anyone/anywhere when I was in Toronto three weeks ago. Typical.

By  Kelly J. Crawford, at 1:15 PM  

You could have the greatest movie in Canadian history, but if it has more than a few lines of incidental French, it will not run in the ROC (Rest of Canada, meaning not Quebec, for you foreigners).

There really are two solitudes.

By  Webs, at 1:40 PM  

Congrats, Alex!

Let me know who gets the DVD rights for N. America...

By  Cunningham, at 2:09 PM  

Noticed posters for the movie on my way back to Montreal from Massachusetts. Didn't know you then. (Came here because of YulBlog.)
Was the plan to make a bilingual movie in order to court the ROC?
At any rate, it does sound like an interesting movie.

By  Alexandre, at 2:41 AM  

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