Canadian Bacon

Canadian Bacon

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DVD Reviews of Canadian Bacon

DVD Review: Shrill and offensive
Summary: 2 Stars

Alan Alda plays an American president in trouble with the voting public. With the end of the Cold War and the attendant downsizing of the defense industry, lots of red-blooded American citizens are now out of work, and unemployed workers tend to vote for the other guy. What is a corrupt politician to do? According to Moore, the solution lies in creating a new enemy against which the American people can rally. After a failed attempt to restart a conflict with the tottering Soviet Union, the president and his slimy advisors set their sights on Canada. Urged on by his National Security Advisor Stuart Smiley (Pollack) and General Richard Panzer (Torn), the president sets into motion a flurry of anti-Canadian measures. Before too long, the media joins the fray by broadcasting thinly veiled slurs against the Great White North. An ugly incident at a hockey game in Canada, where American Sheriff Bud Boomer (Candy) starts a riot when he casts an aspersion on Canadian beer, further stokes the fires back home. Everything is really starting to work in the president's favor: the voters rapidly forget about the nation's economic troubles and begin arming themselves to stave off a possible invasion from Canada.

When a few Americans decide to take matters into their own hands and invade Canada themselves, the real trouble starts. Bud Boomer, his girlfriend Honey (Perlman), and a few other brain dead hicks sneak across the border to cause a little disturbance. When some Canadian cops interrupt the fun, the Americans flee back into the United States without realizing they left Honey behind. This mistake leads Boomer and his companions to reinvade Canada in search of their beloved woman, a mission loaded with lots of humorous situations comparing the stupidity and aggressiveness of Americans with the simplicity and friendliness of Canadians. Meanwhile, back in Washington, D.C., the evil corporate boss R.J. Hacker (Spradlin) spurs the White House on in their fake little war games. He tells Stuart Smiley that he sold the Canadians a doomsday device that has the capacity to launch American missiles at the former Soviet Union. Hacker will sell the code to defuse the weapon to the government for a paltry sum of a few billion dollars. What started out as a political ploy to carry the next election has suddenly turned into a scenario involving all out nuclear war.

I am willing to overlook a bit of cant in a movie from time to time, but the avalanche of propaganda in "Canadian Bacon" is simply a wonder to behold. Moore skewers everything he hates about America: guns, the military, corporations, the media, patriots, and just about everything else under the sun. R.J. Hacker comes off as a power mad lunatic, the politicians are manipulative cynics, and the movie tars the average American with a generous coating of stupidity and blind patriotism. The latter is surprising since Moore consistently presents himself as the mouthpiece of the downtrodden American worker. But there is the director himself in one scene of the movie, carrying an assault rifle and mouthing jingoistic platitudes about wiping out the Canadians as if to put an exclamation point on his messages. As difficult as it is to swallow these sequences of truly nauseating hate, the movie as a whole is even worse because it isn't funny. Sure, a few scenes made me laugh out loud: the CIA spook outlining the sinister secrets of Canada is a real hoot, as are several of the encounters between Boomer's "army" and Canadian citizens. Overall, however, the movie tanks due to its shrill tone.

The American public knew better than to buy into this junk when the movie opened back in the mid 1990s. Moore's recent popularity has inspired a few revisionists to resurrect this mediocre effort in order to sing its praises. Most people who speak about "Canadian Bacon" now refer to its prescience concerning the existing administration in the White House--and do so without a trace of irony--as though America's forty-second president didn't try and distract the public from his scandal plagued regime by launching missiles into Afghanistan and Africa. I admit Moore scores some points in this movie, but those barbs jab both ways, folks. Watch "Canadian Bacon" for a few select scenes and try to ignore the movie as a whole.

Description of Canadian Bacon