perhaps not at it's finest, but this is what having a film industry based on government grants and corporate sponsorship will get you. This is not a movie for the masses, but it is very representative of Canadian cinema, odd, uncompromising to a fault and a little too tidy. I agree with Jay Alexander review where he faults the film being too clean looking, the same subject in the hands of a Guy Ritchie or Quentin Tarantino would look much different. Looks like it was shot of digital video, but I'm not sure. At the same time this movie is unflinchingly ugly, yes it has topless boxing, but some of the women you really wish would put their shirts back on (and if you saw the film, you know who I'm talking about). However, this is something you would NEVER see in a Hollywood film, an ugly female in a positive role? fugetaboutit. You will get plenty of ugly fat men baring it all, but never women. For this I applaud the filmmakers for their boldness, although I found it very hard to watch. I also found some of the boxing scenes verging on "Rocky" territory, which hurts the presentation.
The subject matter is intriguing as well and rarely explored, that is female violence against females, but not in a cutesy "cat-fight" hair pulling way, this is all out pounding the sh*t out of each other. I remember seeing a documentary about young women these days how there is almost as many cases of female bullying and gang violence as there is male, but we don't hear about it as much. As we break down barriers between the sexes, these are some of the results.
Much of the dialogue is odd, and as one reviewer noted very "Hal Hartley" like, although with a Canadian spin. How many movies would you see a scene of a beautiful and well toned female pump starting a lawn mower yelling "I think the alternator's fucked" as father looks on? There are lots of scenes like this, and when they work, they work wonderfully, but when they don't they fall pretty flat. The acting is very good, although the males are portrayed as either wimpy or complete *ssholes. Meredith McGeachie does a convincing job as the lesbian boxing champion that nobody can beat, her boxing moves looked real and not like a female trying to pretend to fight like a man (as Sonja Bennett does). And is it me or does she look strikingly similar to Jerri from Survivor a few years back? Overall an interesting yet flawed film, and oh so Canadian, representing what many see as the horrible state of Canadian cinema, for others a viable alternative to Hollywood pablum.
