H2O

Seeing Paul Gross,after his role in Due South,is quite a change. This film H2O is a political thriller set in the near future. Water,not oil,is the main subject of this film. Our neighbour to the south,United States,is running out of it,so,they would love to get their hands on ours. In this film,the prime minister dies in a boating accident,which turns out to be murder. Slowly,the solicitor general discovers their is a plot,to merge Canada into the United States. He tries to prevent this happening,with tragic results. I sent a couple of DVD's to a couple of friends in the US of this film. One person did not care for it,the politics was to confusing. The other person did enjoy it,the political background of the film,confusing,so he goes to the library and gets a few books about Canada and it political setup. I am now waiting for the next film,H2O: Trojan horse.

Paul Gross learned many things while playing a Mountie on US TV, I will grant him that. That is all, however, that I will grant him. This 2-part mini-series looks slick, but that is as deep as it goes. The attempts to portray a kind of unrequited affair with the female lead were pathetic. The portrayal that either the First Nations or Quebec would present a serious threat with actual violence (as seen in this film) is laughable; sorry, but Paul Gross is too much a pretty-boy to be taken seriously in this role. Bottom line: the premise is flawed (you cannot possibly be elected in a by-election, then become Prime Minister within the time-frame presented); and the enactment of such a thing as the War Meaures Act could not possibly occur within the context of this movie. Given what went on within Quebec the last time it was used (I was there), an enactment of it under the circumstances presented in this movie is an incomprehensible thing to anyone who lived there at that time. You want to create the situation for a referendum on sovereignty? That would be it, and sovereignty would win, with my vote helping! Second bottom line:way too slick overall to be taken seriously as any kind of drama/commentary on the world we live in in reality! 2 thumbs DOWN! Not even worth a re-watch.

After a few decent stabs at producing good Canadian movies, CBC has laboured mightily and brought forth a turkey this time. The scenario is absurd. The acting is overwrought. The production is pretentious. The facts are shaky. What is this "Canadian Federal Police?" Do they perhaps mean the RCMP? And what is this emergency power thing that this young whelp of a pm invokes. I thought it was called The War Measures Act. Nor does the office of "deputy prime minister" have any constitutional standing. He (or she) does not automatically take over as does the US vice president if the big guy dies in office. It would be a matter to be resolved by the Liberal party and/or the Governor-general. And a black US president??? Not in our lifetime! This is really a stupid movie that reflects our insecurity, our naivete and our incompetence at making movies. We're very good at snowmobiles. And beer. Not movies.

I watched this mini-series because I had seen Paul Gross in Due South and Slings and Arrows. I don't have to be a "spoiler" to say that this was a truly inane mini-series. The issue of Canada withholding water from the USA was an interesting one that was quickly and completely drowned. There was good acting but only in scenes meant to show off good acting rather than to move the plot in any understandable direction (watch the interminable "mother of the prime minister" scenes). Dissecting this misconceived film is hardly worthwhile. Canada has a fine talent in Mr. Gross, but that talent doesn't extent to script writing. H20 does not hold water.

As someone who is very fond of politics- especially Canadian politics- this film deeply troubles me.

It is the story of how the country can be bought and sold so easily. It is a warning. While extremely unlikely, this could happen. It uses characters very deliberately based on previous Canadian icons (Trudeau being the big one) to hit close to home. These people have already been in power and we never thought anything overly terrible of what they did while they were in power. This film- in a very Isaac Asimov way (though, obviously Asimov was brilliant and Gross, while a good writer, cannot compare) shows us how close we are to our greatest fears.

One day, the prime minister dies in a canoeing incident and after running and winning leadership of the party his father lead, his son takes power and starts pushing through some very aggressive legislations. Later, we find out that his father's death and that of the woman who was with him were suspicious in the extreme and we start to see little by little what's really going on, though the ending is a total shock. It is hard to describe without giving it away, so suffice it to say it uses past Canadian political experiences (the Free Trade agreement, the War Measures Act, Black October) to show how close we are to losing it all.

With outstanding direction (actually making Parliament Hill look sexy), great acting from Paul Gross, Guy Nadon and Martha Henry and a shocker ending, this is well worth watching. Especially for Canadian political junkies like me.