SXSW Review: Trailer Park Boys

by Jette Kernion Mar 19th 2007 // 4:34PM

Filed under: Comedy, SXSW, Theatrical Reviews, Cinematical Indie



I've never lived in Canada, so I haven't been able to enjoy the TV series on which the movie Trailer Park Boys is based. I can't tell you how faithful the movie is to the TV show. I watched the movie, which had its U.S. premiere at SXSW, as an American being exposed to the gang for the first time. So I can tell you that you don't have to be Canadian or a fan of the show to get a kick out of Trailer Park Boys. However, you do have to enjoy drug, alcohol and strip-club humor.

I feel like I could essentially recycle my Smiley Face review for this movie: it's the same overall tone and has similar lightweight humor, although Trailer Park Boys pretends to have more of a plot. Ricky (Robb Wells), Julian (John Paul Tremblay) and Bubbles (Mike Smith) reunite after Ricky and Julian are released from jail for trying to rob an ATM. They all live in Sunnyvale Trailer Park: Ricky lives in his barely functional car next to his girlfriend Lucy's trailer, and Bubbles lives in a shed with innumberable adorable cats. Julian reveals his great criminal idea: robbing parking meters and other change dispensers because they can't get jail time for robbing change. Ricky, however, wants to go for "the big dirty," an enormous heist that will give them enough money to retire, so Ricky can enjoy life with his longtime girlfriend Lucy and their daughter Trinity, and grow weed on the side. While they're debating over their next job, the trailer-park manager Mr. Lahey is plotting to evict them so he can have a trouble-free community.

The plot isn't that critical, and it takes a backseat to the characters and to any opportunity for comedy. One thing I liked about Trailer Park Boys is that although the main characters all live in a trailer park, are poor and perhaps, are not making what might be called healthy lifestyle choices, they are treated with a certain amount of respect. We aren't ever actually laughing at the trio of friends or their women -- well, maybe at Cory and Trevor, but we learn to like them too. Mike Smith has some hilarious facial expressions as Bubbles, especially behind those glasses, but we still empathize with him. (Perhaps the cute cats help.) The characters we do laugh at are the film's bad guys, for whom the filmmakers spare no mercy in caricaturing. Mr. Lahey is wonderfully nasty. I now have a little bit of a crush on Robb Wells (shown in the above photo) -- I'm hoping we'll see him more often in films shown in America.

Trailer Park Boys uses that semi-documentary style popularized by The Office, in which characters speak to an unknown interviewer at times. This is useful in providing background for those of us who haven't seen the TV show, but it's also a good source for humor. Many of the laughs also come from the three guys' amazingly creative insults -- I wish I'd written some of them down to use on my brothers. The humor is sometimes uneven, ranging from the silly to the raunchy, and there are a few stretches where the movie seemed to drag even at 95 minutes. It may not be a movie you want to own and watch a dozen times, but it's goofy fun while it lasts. (Just like Smiley Face.)

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Tags: Canada, Cinematical, film, John Paul Tremblay, Mike Smith, movie, Robb Wells

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