glahaye

I don't usually write reviews to say how bad movies are. This one is so bad that I'm making an exceptions.

I'm a fan of Kevin Smith's early work. I'm afraid however that Clerks was his best movie and that all of the following ones have displayed a clear downward trajectory. Mall Rats was still good, then came all the ordinary movies with a fan boy twist.

Now we've got Tusk.

This movie treats us to a generous serving of clichés served with a side dish of inaccurate details. It starts with minor yet annoying things such as Canadians saying "eh" and "aboot" and then devolves into a bad mishmash of Misery and the Human Centipede.

That would be enough in its own right but almost as if to prove the movie can be made worse, Johnny Depp's character emerges. A French- speaking, beret-wearing (did I mention inaccurate clichés?) ex-cop whose presentation in the film just weakens this already limp excuse for a movie.

What's sadder than losing over an hour and a half of your life watching this movie is knowing that somewhere, deep inside, Kevin Smith still must have talent yet can't seem to channel it to make any movie that means something anymore.

This well directed and witty movie relates the stories of many people in their late twenties who travel from Quebec City to Montreal for various reasons and talk about relationships.

The protagonists' paths all cross in ways reminiscent of "Sidewalks of New York". However, the intertwining stories are clearly set in the province of Quebec and francophones from that region will immediately associate with the language and the social references used.

This is the best canadian movie relating the difficulties encountered in relationships since "The Myth of the Male Orgasm". It provides material for laughter and for thought.