De drôles d'oiseaux

Rare Birds is indeed a rare find, an original and quirky little comedy, but one that is good when it could have been great. With one step in the wrong direction, Rare Birds takes a bit of a fall from grace, but not too far at least. It remains entertaining, in a way that few comedies are.

Dave runs a small hotel and restaurant in coastal Newfoundland, but business is poor, and he is tempted to close, until his friend Phonce comes up with the idea of faking the sighting of a rare bird on the water that his hotel overlooks (a species of duck thought to be extinct). Suddenly he has a whole army of nutty birdwatchers flocking to his corner of the island. A fun start to the movie, but obviously not fun enough.

For some reason the filmmakers are so desperate to please us that they turn Rare Birds away from charm and towards slapstick. There are a couple of awkward subplots, one involving a mini sub that Phonce has created in his garage and another which involves some military technology that Phonce has stolen which leads to him and Dave taking a secret agent hostage. It all builds up to such absurdity that it literally ends in a bang.

The cast is a strange but charming bunch. Both William Hurt and Molly Parker are likable on screen, but it is Phonce who steals the movie. Everything comedic about Rare Birds revolves around him and the things he does.

Even if the movie looses some of its potential to somewhat banal direction, I think it's pretty hard not to like Rare Birds even a little bit.

The haute-cuisine Newfoundland restaurant (with its fine wines) called "The Auk," owned by Dave Purcell (William Hurt), is almost out of business because there is no business. One night his friend, Alphonse "Phonce" Murphy (Andy Jones) asks him over to his house for dinner, where he meets Phonce's sprightly sister-in-law Alice (Molly Parker), from Gull Tickle. After the meal, Phonce takes Dave to his shed through a secret tunnel that is lit up with sheets of light hung up via a clothesline (Yuri Tsvetkov illumination system). In the shed, Phonce shows Dave a 26-pound carton of cocaine that he found at sea. Phonce wants to know what it's worth, but Dave advises him to throw it into the ocean. But when Dave snorts it, he tells Phonce that it is good quality. Phonce then shows Dave his 1,200 pound two-man prototype RSV (Recreational Submarine Vehicle). So these story lines set up the rest of the movie.

At a local library Phonce convinces Dave to claim that he saw an extremely rare bird (Tasker's Sulphureous Duck) at Push Cove (near Cape Spear NHS) close to the restaurant. Such an assertion will attract birders to the area, and since they have to eat, will provide customers for Dave's business. The ruse works as birders rush to the bay to get a glimpse of the duck. The restaurant is extremely busy. Dave, though, gets into the habit of snorting cocaine. He feels guilty when a birder plunges off a nearby cliff in a fruitless search for the rare duck. Dave convinces him otherwise, and then enlists his aid in launching his prototype sub.

Just when the long-awaited romantic interlude between Dave and Alice apparently commences, his long separated wife Claire announces that she will be arriving from Washington, DC. Then the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) show up! What will Dave do? Will he dump the coke? Will he hang onto the girl from Gull Tickle? Will the duck ruse last? What does the RCMP want? One thing is for certain, this writer did not need to see Hurt's naked butt! Another thing, the subplots generally detract from the main story. And Dave's attraction to the coke was pointless. By the way, the Taskers Sulphureous Duck is non-existent. And the Yuri Tsvetkov illumination system is probably unreal.

On positive notes, the cinematography is excellent: the movie was filmed off the rocky and rugged shores of Newfoundland. Hurt is good as usual, and Jones is comedic. Red-headed Molly Parker, a Canadian gal, is so appealing that she brightens up the entire film. She is a scene-stealer. I do not see her attraction for the far-older man, however, except for his food-preparation expertise. By the way, the restaurant is named after the Great Auk, the flightless Atlantic sea bird that was unfortunately hunted to extinction in 1844. "Rare Birds" is really harmless fluff, lighthearted entertainment that does not really go anywhere. Yet it is entertaining, and this author did not waste time in watching it.

What a waste of a good cast and exquisite scenery. Moments of humour and greatness but with an absolutely awful subplot that went nowhere about cocaine. And to make matters worse it shows the character of William Hurt using it on a regular basis in the movie. All the main characters needed a dialogue coach apart from Andy Jones who looked surprised at times at running out of good script moments (what, again?). William Hurt had one of the most hit and miss accents of any movie. It was all rather a shame as there was both a good premise and a great promise in the film. Some awful editing too to add to this disjointed effort. Perhaps all the behind the scenes people were busy snorting.....the whole mess certainly reflects it. 6 out of 10 for Andy and the scenery.

In this day and age of fast paced, overstylished movies, comes this tale of a chef and his close friend, who tries to save his buddies deserted restaurant, by inventing the sighting of a near extinct duck near the location to attract customers.

While this is going on, there is still time left to work on a recreational submarine, in a basement which is filled with cocaine and the most strange flat lamps.

Hurt is acting his guts out as the clumsy, near nerve wrecked chef who's lost in an absurd world. And there is romance too.

Well, it's a long time ago I didn't see a movie which reminded me of another one, and this alone is quite an accomplishment. A lovely little movie, quite serene and if you ask me highly underrated pearl of creative cinema.

William Hurt has a failing restaurant in Newfoundland and an estranged wife in Washington D. C. He and friend Andy Jones -- who's building a small submarine -- discover a lot of cocaine in Hurt's wine cellar. After they establish it is good cocaine (so to speak), Hurt starts a rumor that a type of duck thought extinct has been spotted in the bay his isolated restaurant sits on. Suddenly people start showing up to look for the duck and eat, and his first hire is Molly Parker.

It's a very low-key comedy, as the heat develops between Hurt and Miss Parker, Jones' submarine gets an outing, and some guys who are obviously not birders set up in a Winnebago near the restaurant.

Hurt has always been a puzzle to me as a movie star -- and, according to reports, to himself as well. He moves slowly from inert, depressed lump to hopeful lump and I can see the emotional journey, but it's the situations and fog-bound images that held my interest. The movie itself is a paean to the polite eccentrics of Canada.