Project Grizzly

The movie was funny and brilliant. Here's your everyman trying to make something different and following a dream. The funny thing isn't that he tried to design the suit for Grizzly bears but that after the film he actually redirected his thinking towards a suit designed to protect firefighters. While doing this and discovering his suit wasn't safe unless it was fireproof, he managed to create a compound that MIT professors said couldn't be made. He created a ceramic? compound that he demonstrated in his own unique way. He placed a small brick of it on top of a helmet and had a braizing torch directed on the top of it for 10 minutes (at 5000 degrees). After 10 minutes the temperate had risen barely 10 degrees. A crackpot? no doubt :) But likely a backyard genius too. See it once and remember that not all inventions in history were used in the original purpose that the creator envisioned.

This short documentary (72 min) introduces North Bay, Ontario's Troy Hurtubise, and I can assure you you won't soon forget this guy. After a near-encounter with a giant grizzly in the Canadian Rockies, Hurtubise becomes seized with the idea of building a protective body suit strong enough to let him wrestle 'the Old Man' mano-a-mano and live to tell about it.

Just the sight of this contraption will make you laugh, and there are enough scenes of the 'field-testing' to keep you in stitches as he is knocked over by flying logs, run into by a pick-up truck doing 35 clicks and shot at with a variety of firearms, all without suffering any ill effects.

Hurtubise was apparently annoyed that the film ignores the 'science'. No doubt there are practical uses for this seemingly impenetrable body suit, but discussing the chemical properties of titanium won't make for a good film. Project Grizzly is the story of a man who follows the beat of his own drummer. And it is a very funny film. Early on, the laughter may be directed AT Hurtubise, but by the end of the film the viewer has come to respect the integrity of this man's quest and to feel certain that he will achieve his objectives someday, if not just yet. An entertaining and off-beat film.

As many have noted, this film is not about a man fighting a grizzly bear, despite what the pitch would seem to promise. It's about a man eccentric enough to build a suit for a rematch against a bear that once pushed him over. In other words, it's about a fricking egotistical moron with too much time and money on his hands and a documentary crew giving us the most boring version. It's Moby Dick for rednecks and this time there is no climax. Troy talks about his knives, his father and rambles almost incoherently about an encounter with a bear. He makes a number of suits and there are some funny Jackass like test runs. Had the documentary explored more of the mans psychosis (like the incredible Grizzly Man) it would be of some interest, instead it pats Troy on the head to elicit cheap laughs. You're better off going elsewhere for more intelligent and well constructed documentaries.

After surviving an attack by a grizzly bear, some Canadian yahoo spends the rest of his life trying to design a suit that will . . . help you survive a bear attack.

We watch the development of his suit, which involves smoking cigarettes and being crazy, until the Canadian government approves it for testing.

It's a funny movie but not worth much but a few laughs.

This documentary follows a Canadian bear researcher who builds a bear-proof suit of armour so he can confront a grizzly bear head on and live to tell the tale. This documentary on Troy Hurtubise is nothing short of hilarious! We follow troy through his building and testing of his 'grizzly-proof' suit to his hunt for the angry bear from donut shops and biker bars to the Rocky Mountains. As it's been said here, you have to love this guy, even though he's a little out there!

'A bear of a movie that had audiences howling with laughter.' - The Toronto Star

Another fine gem from the National Film Board of Canada.