Fubar

This is a stoner rock mockumentary. I love the opening credits that tells the audience that this is fictional but apologizing to anybody participating in the film who thought it was real. It's 2000 and filmmaker Farrel Mitchner (Gordon Skilling) documents two head banging friends Dean Murdoch (Paul Spence) and Terry Cahill (David Lawrence). The boys are trying to get Troy nicknamed Tron to party.

This is filled with great bits of comedy. The two leads fully commit to these characters. There are truly funny moments that surprises. The natural comparison is to Spinal Tap. Spinal Tap is always obviously fictional filled with great improvisational comedians. This feels like real people doing a real indie. These guys would fit into any Cops episode. Giver!

I was sold with the tagline: GIVER. These guys are so genuinely into their lives that you can't help but admire them, even though they are like, the quintessential lowlifes, complete with illegitimate children and sordid tales of fingerbanging cousins (eww..). Either way, they are having the best time with what they have, and it's great fun to watch, even though it's all fake. I have never been in a theatre with a movie playing that brought down the house. It was awesome. I can shotgun better than Farrell (although that doesn't seem very hard to do). His cake was priceless. 10/10

"Fubar" is a 100% Canadian mockumentary from writer / director Michael Dowse ("It's All Gone, Pete Tong", "Goon") that delivers some modest chuckles, but works because it ultimately cares about its characters. Paul Spence and David Lawrence play Dean and Terry, two 20 something goof balls who are decidedly unambitious in life. A documentary filmmaker named Farrel (Gordon Skilling) sets out to record their day to day activities, as they live the life of those party animals known as "head bangers".

Not really to be mistaken for a rock 'n' roll movie (although the soundtrack *is* ace); music doesn't play that big a part in the story that unfolds. At first, Dowses' film is mildly amusing as it shows us the tomfoolery to which Dean and Terry are prone. It's got a funny enough script, with liberal use of profanity - especially F-bombs. Things do take a sober turn when it is discovered that Dean has testicular cancer, and he's forced to take the matter seriously. He and Terry then confront ideas of life and death, even as they entertain themselves with such things as a camping trip.

The no-name cast is quite engaging, especially Spence. Skilling is a hoot as the uptight, seemingly humourless director. Incidentally, the guy in the role of Deans' doctor was Dowses' physician in real life, and he's basically playing himself. A number of the supporting players did actually mistake "Fubar" for a serious doc on the life of the "common man" in Canada.

Overall, a likable, offbeat effort. It does bear the mark of a low budget, but it does have some charm that more than makes up for that.

Seven out of 10.

This movie was so well acted that i cant believe they were not really drinking all nite. There are so many parts of the movie that I lived through. The camping trip was classic, from not trying to set up the tent until you are too drunk to jumping through the fire. The story had to be written by a true 80's headbanger and is a trip down hazy memory lane. This movie wont appeal to everyone, but with the success of the Osbournes there is a lot of people wanting to jump on the bangerwagon. This movie will help them learn what it takes to be a hard core banger.

Recently I got to watch two films that were shot in and around my home town of Calgary.

One film was "Open Range" and the other was "Fubar".

Both films are focused on the reactions of two close friends to the trials that life can throw at you. Both films involve a lot of walking around, talking and strange interactions with other characters in the film. Both films feature people who basically wrote, directed and starred in the movie. Both feature lots of cool alberta scenery and both are worth watching. However, while one film is a carefully crafted yet somehow lifeless product that is ultimately a chore to watch the other is a throbbing wild thing that wiggles like a fish in your hand.

The great flick here is Fubar.

I was mesmerized from the start, mostly because I knew all of the locations intimately. Then I realized, I also knew these two guys intimately. I grew up with them. We all played hockey in the living room and busted stuff. We shotgunned pilsners and we all went "camping" and did hideous amounts of damage to ourselves and those around us in the process and we only survived through sheer luck and by keeping the gas pedal floored and not looking back. Man, its bang on right.

This film captures certain of the unique qualities of being "Canadian" better than any other film that I have seen. Nothing Second City or Bob and Doug Mackenzie ever did compares to the genius that made this film. Its not the goofiness or the idiocy, its the spirit of these two bozos that wins your heart.

Bravo, I'm proud of these guys.

Giver!