Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day

Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day

Directed by Mike Clattenburg
Written by Mike Clattenburg, Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay, Mike Smith and Timm Hannebohm
Starring Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay, Mike Smith, John Dunsworth, Jonathan Torrens and Patrick Roach
Classification: 14A

Make no mistake, they're becoming Trailer Park Men, demonstrating sure signs of maturity. Bubbles has a girlfriend. Ricky, who once believed Victoriaville was the capital of British Columbia, is cramming to get his Grade 12. And Julian has finally learned to share his rum and Coke.

So maybe it makes sense that in this, their last movie or TV show, they call it quits while they're still behind. Do we really want to see Bubbles married with 2.5 kitties - the fizz leaking from his life like air from a punctured tire?

No, it's better to remember him as he is in Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day , bursting in on Mr. Lahey- his oyster eyes wide in horror - as the trailer-park supervisor shaves his lover Randy's back.

Let's also preserve the memory of Ricky as he is here, greeting the dawn sprawled pantless in the back seat of his rusted house-car, girlfriend Lucy spilling out the front, with a skinny raccoon tiptoeing around them in search of bar nuts that might have spilled from their pockets.

We Canadians like our comedy heroes rough - forget the sandpaper. Think of Mary Walsh's Marg Delahunty assailing unsuspecting politicians, or Bob and Doug McKenzie showing us how to roll a cigarette with snowmobile mitts on.

For the last 10 years, the roughest - if not the best thing - on Canadian TV has been Trailer Park Boys , a mockumentary celebrating the lowlife adventures of three big-dreaming, low-achieving trailer-park misfits.

Although, come to think of it, maybe the TPBs aren't that different from you and me. In their latest misadventure, the boys look to knock off a bank, driving a van duded up with electrical tape and broken hockey sticks to resemble a Brinks truck. Inside the financial institution, they encounter customers filing glumly past "Financial Freedom" placards.

The Boys themselves are big on economic initiatives. Julian once hatched a Freedom 35 plan (modelled, presumably, after the well-advertised Freedom 55 retirement program) that involved boosting car stereos and selling a few tons of dope. So you wonder: Are Julian, Ricky and Bubbles really much worse off than the poor schmos queued up beside them, hoping to arrange a loan to cover mortgage payments?

Rick Moranis observed that one reason SCTV worked was that everybody instantly understood John Candy's characters. True enough. And maybe we loved Trailer Park Boys because we empathized with their plight. At one time or another, haven't we all felt like luckless nitwits locked in a get-poor-slow scheme?

More than anything, though, Trailer Park Boys succeeded because they were good company. So they are again in their second movie. Countdown to Liquor Day begins with the boys being released from jail to find their trailer park trashed. Well, it was always pretty rundown, but now it's deserted, too. Even Bubbles's 27 cats are gone, despite his leaving a small mountain of cat nibbles behind.

Everyone has moved to the Lahey's Luxury Estates, property of the always mean and frequently drunk Jim Lahey (John Dunsworth). Julian (John Paul Tremblay) takes the high road. Ignoring Lahey, he decides to go legit, starting up his own auto shop. The business is a flop, however. No one shows. Julian has failed once again. "He ego writing cheques that his brains can't cash" is how the trailer park's hip-hop prophet, J-Roc (Jonathan Torrens), puts it.

And so once again the TPBs are up a familiar creek without a paddle. Bubbles (Mike Smith) locks his cats away in a shelter. Ricky (Robb Wells) requires money for smokes and hair-grooming products. Julian needs a Freedom 40 plan. What are they going to do?

That's right. It's time to hit the bank and withdraw a little self-respect.

Question: What are we going to do without Ricky, Julian and Bubbles? For a decade now, they've been our roach-burned security blanket. No matter how bad it got, it was comforting knowing there were three hosers worse off than us, living in a trailer park outside Dartmouth.

Special to The Globe and Mail