BON COP, BAD COP

Bon Cop, Bad Cop

William of Normandy (that bastard French-Viking) conquered the Island.

So it should come as no surprise that French was the language spoken for quite a long time in the British Courts; even as William attempted to keep English for the English.

As decades and indeed centuries passed, the English Courts combined French and English with a lot of Lingua Latina thrown in; since that was the universal language of the era. http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361Heys.htm

Hence our English is less ‘gutteral’ than Beowulf and it has a great facility to incorporate phrases taken from other languages.  The new English spread across the globe like a virus replacing Latin as the Universal Language. 

Now we have many multi-linguists in the blog sites I visit; but we commoners forget that things were not always as they are now.

I have ‘basic’ computer capabilities, but my goodness, you can find a program to ‘translate’ with a couple keystrokes. 

A cable provider usually includes a language function so that you may view your program with a language best suited to your tastes or education.

PBS has delayed any Masterpiece Theatre—for a while I guess as they replay that wonderful Civil War series from the 90’s.  I just saw this series a short time ago so I turned to something else, checking in during commercials.

I viewed a wonderful Canadian Flick entitled: Bon Cop, Bad Cop. (2006) It is a Canadian production which explains why it cost 8 million to make instead of 80 million.

Now CBC has the same number of commercial breaks theoretically, but the breaks are shorter—I swear even though the Canuck’s best news program is entitled 22 Minutes.

Anyway this film is wonderful.

First, Bon Cop, Bad Cop threads English and French so well, that I can only think that the folks in Quebec would bitch that there is too much English, and the folks in Ontario would bitch that there is too much French.

Second, the plot has two cops, one from Ontario and one from Quebec, stuck with working as a team because a body is found wrapped around a sign separating Montreal from Quebec.

The two naturally hold each other in contempt but as the film progresses; both heroes meet each other’s families and learn to work together for a common cause which is the theme of the picture. 

The one thing they hold in common is detestation for Americans who wish to steal their hockey players. Hahaahah. But they both hold this interest with the villain; who is killing individuals responsible for selling Canada’s greatest players and one of their NHL teams to American corporations. 

What a great team of writers for this! 

Comedy is spread throughout the film. At one point the bad guy dresses up as a hockey team mascot and actually performs his own rendition of De Niro’s Mirror Scene in Taxi.

Are you talkin to me? Are you…..

The Montreal actor is familiar to Americans (Patrick Huard),  the French/Quebec actor (Colm Feore) not so much. But I tell you it would be difficult to pan either performance in this film.

Both cops are bilingual. Montreal’s cop is straight laced; to Americans he appears a Brit through and through.

The Quebec cop is an emotional Frank.

But they do not overdo this; I mean the device of contrast. It appears in the beginning but fades a little later in the film although the Brit is a fine dresser and the Frank not so much (although his fashionable leather jacket might be more costly than the Brit’s suits)!

Wiki tells me that Bon Cop, Bad Cop was the highest grossing Canadian film of all time. And I can understand why.

There is a little too much Bruce Willis here, but the heroes prevail and all is well. 

Cars are exploded, people are thrown into car trunks, heroes are shot, heroes fight the good fight, children of heroes are put in danger, and many victims lose their lives.

But there are great discussions held between the two Canadians; good good dialogue and a lot of fun.

And the bad guy gets blown up in the end. 

What more can a man in his pj’s expect from cable let alone Canadian cable?