I never would have thought I’d one day be writing a review about a Canadian-made movie, let alone one made in Québec. Yet here I am, and I’m enjoying it, too.

To be honest, as much as I unconditionally love the French movie style – and I mean French from France -, I’ve never been a fan of our own French-Canadian cinematography. But I’ll try anything once, or twice, and since my honorable sister was recently commenting very positively on Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y., which I haven’t seen and probably won’t, I figured I’d give Québec a chance too.

So I went to the Empire Granville 7 cinema, got a ticket for the 9:50 pm show and sat in a very small theatre with a rather cheap screen. J’allais voir Bon Cop Bad Cop d’Erik Canuel.

Et pour bien commencer, je me dois d’écrire cette critique en deux langues puisque le film se flatte d’être le premier long métrage entièrement bilingue au Canada. So to fully appreciate the movie, you not only need to be bilingual, but preferably Canadian, and even better, Québécois.

As a web critic put it, “It kinda goes like this: If you’re from Kwebek you’ll piss yourself, if you’re from the rest of Canada you’ll laugh, if you’re from the Northeast United-States you’ll giggle and if you’re from Utah you’ll need a translator and an explanation.” Or “It is a film where Anglophones speak French, where Francophones speak English and, in perfectly Canadian fashion, nobody can understand one another.”

However, there were some subtitles which I ignored and hence, I don’t remember if everything was subtitled or only the French parts, since we were in a Vancouver theatre and got the English version… Quoi qu’il en soit, I was impressed. Granted, Bon Cop Bad Cop est violent et un peu grossier, cela semble être la mode. Nowadays to sell a movie, you have to make them bleed. Granted too, the buddy cop movie scenario has been done before. And the script isn’t even so ingenious.

But, and that’s where I pause for effect… The not-so-bilingual duo of Québec cop Bouchard (Patrick Huard) and Ontario cop Ward (Colm Feore) is what totally makes the movie a hit. The dialogues are often hilarious and the famous Canada-Québec antagonism en prend plein la gueule.

Filmé à la “Traffic”, the movie is trendy and manages to keep you laughing while the subject is nothing but serious. No, I don’t mean the hockey part, I was referring to the crimes.

In any case, it’s not the movie of the year, but it’s a good start in a new direction. Let’s hope it’ll keep up.