Sunday, March 03, 2013

As research for a cop comedy I'm writing, we rented Emile Gaudreault's DE PÈRE EN FLIC again. (It's called FATHER AND GUNS in English, but don't hold that against it. The French title is meant to be a play on "de père en fils," "like father, like son.")

Michel Côté is a tough cop; Jean-Louis Houde is his son, also a cop. The father thinks the son is a wuss. The son thinks the father is an overbearing jerk. To save a cop who's been kidnapped, they have to go on a fathers-and-sons group therapy canoe trip together.

It's really one of the best cop movies I've ever seen. It works on every level you'd want, really. It's a good cop story. It has heart. And it is terribly funny. It's all about fathers, and sons, and two generations, and it is so specific to Québec that any American will immediately get it. It is a cop movie, but only in the way that SEMI-TOUGH was a football movie. Really, it is a relationship movie with a few guns in it.

We had Jean-Louis Houde in BON COP/ BAD COP -- he was the mile-a-minute-talking coroner. I tend to watch Québecois movies with the French subtitles on. In the case of JL Houde, I suspect there are francophones who watch with the subtitles on. There were times he spoke too fast for me to read all the subtitles.

But anyway, rent the movie if you possibly can. It is just beautifully done. 

7:33 PM

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