Directed by Matt Johnson | Written by Johnson, Jay McCarrol, Jared Raab, Curt Lobb, Matthew Miller, Matt Greyson, Luca Tarantini, and Evan Morgan | 95 min | ▲▲1/2 | In Cinemas
I guess I’m a skeptic when it comes to the ouevre of Toronto comic actor and filmmaker, Matt Johnson. I wasn’t much of a fan of Blackberry, but I did appreciate the ambition evident in Operation Avalanche.
Now comes the cinematic version of his and Jay McCarrol’s web-series-turned-TV-series. Here’s the basic premise: Two buddies (fictionalized versions of Johnson and McCarrol) without much in the way of talent want to be rock stars and get a gig at Toronto venue The Rivoli. Instead of learning or practicing their music they hatch bizarre publicity stunts to draw attention to themselves. The original web series footage serves as flashback material.
It’s 17 years later, and not much has changed, except their plans are a little more outrageous: They decide to jump off the CN Tower into the Skydome (or Rogers Centre, whatever they call it these days) in order to earn enough media attention to book that Rivoli gig.
McCarrol starts to realize he’s wasted his life and tries to escape Johnson’s influence and make it on his own — but Johnson somehow turns his motor home into a time machine, returning the two hapless dudes to Toronto 2008, right around when the web series was running. Cue a lot of scenes shot on Queen Street West.
The opening of this comedy is little too goofy, a little too Toronto in-jokey for my taste. It’s entirely possible the cult that exists around this material will eat it up from the jump, but these guys are nowhere near as funny as they think they are, and their mockumentary conceit was tired back in 2008 — the hand-held camera, snap zooms and constant push-ins, all of which Johnson utilized to nauseating effect in Blackberry, are fully evident here and it’s a miserable aesthetic for a feature. You can get away with it if you’ve got a no-budget web show, but these guys are in the big leagues now. There’s a built-in smugness to the humour that’s a little like standing outside a bar that’s hosting a private party where everyone inside is a little drunk. You don’t much feel like joining in.
That said, while the cinematography is appalling, full marks to the FX crew, especially given the otherwise scrappy look of the thing — I really believed these dudes jumped off that tower!
And just as the comedy is becoming tiresome and repetitive the movie moves into its time-travel conceit and it really commits. Somehow the producers got clearance to include props and music cues from Back To The Future, and we get a convoluted multiple time jump scenario that evokes the Robert Zemeckis picture, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and even a touch of Primer in its temporal shifting, which sees McCarrol become a music superstar and the filmmakers somehow capitalize on the real-life shooting that took place at Drake’s Bridal Path home.
As a passion project homage to fantasy material of the past (and a big wet kiss to Toronto) it manages to overcome its slight comedic premise and ingrained presumption to transform into something both heartfelt and crowd pleasing, an ode to friendship and ridiculous shenanigans. Go figure.
