Governor Gabbi

Giving this a 10 because I have not laughed this hard since The Room. A must see for bad movie buffs

1 extra star given for those insert shots. I also like the dresser moving scene.

First of all, I like watching bad movies. I am usually willing to give a bad movie a chance but this movie broke me. Why couldn't the bald man have chosen any other craptacular movie to force on us willing Canadians.

To give you and idea of how low the budget was for this movie is, they can't even afford police costumes, so the cops just wear black shirts and hats. I mean, even Ed Wood had police uniforms. Heck, even male strippers have police uniforms.

They also apparently couldn't afford sound gear, because all the dialog is recorded in post production - really badly.

Add to that a nonsensical plot and horrible dialog, and you've got a move that's so bad it's actually kind of fun to watch.

When it comes to bad movies, I always try to start with the positives. It's a rare occasion that I hate a movie completely so even the big-name flops, you usually have something that you can point to that will tell people "I'm not completely biased, this minuscule detail was an interesting choice." Gabbi is going to be tough to summon bright spots for but I'll do my best. The first comment I can make is that this movie is inoffensive, its never going to garner attention and even when it trips up, I didn't get angry, I just shook my head. There's also an earnestness to it that helped me avoid getting upset. It doesn't excuse how terrible it is, but I would prefer someone try and fail (which would also describe most of the performances of the main cast) than just phoning it in.

I'm debating whether I should talk about Gabbi's plot at all, its just dumb and it understands so little about anything it's trying to say. This movie sets up Gabbi's election as Governor as a mix-up about tallying votes for a prize at a bake sale. The fact that someone thought that was a passable idea makes me sigh and I'm just going to skip over the rest of this paragraph. Imagine another 3 lines of me politely insulting this movie for being poorly written.

I don't know if Governor Gabbi was written as a comedy or they just looked at it after and decided to try and salvage it as if they were trying to be intentionally funny. It didn't work but adapt and overcome, I guess? Anyway, the jokes aren't even amusing and there are pauses after them like the movie was supposed to have a sitcom laugh track. Who do we point the finger at for it? Our options are the cast that couldn't deliver them, the writers who thought these lines were funny or even the audience (including myself) for being stupid enough to watch this in the first place. I don't know and I don't care, the only note you need to know is that there is not 1 intentionally funny joke in Governor Gabbi.

I also try not to endlessly criticize the cast too much in any movie, there are just too many factors at play in an actor or actresses' performance. Did they choose to act that way or were they directed to do that? Are the actions of the character colouring our perception of how good or bad the actor or actress is? There's a lot to consider and just labelling someone as bad is lazy, you never know when anyone will have their chance to shine in whatever project. That said, the cast of Governor Gabbi just couldn't sell this material and even on top of how ludicrous the story is, they can't hold up their end. If they were trying to be meta and wink at the camera, they failed and if they were playing it serious...YIKES.

My biggest issue with Governor Gabbi (and it's a movie full of issues) was how obvious and annoying all the ADR (automated dialogue recording) was. The movie seemed like it was completely dubbed over and it sounded awful. The timing didn't line up with people speaking when their mouths weren't moving and the delivery from the actors didn't line up with the emotion that was being put into their performances. It may seem like a nitpick but when you can't attach yourself to the story or the characters, all the other problems start becoming more and more evident.

Governor Gabbi isn't just badly plotted or poorly made, it barely qualifies as a movie. The only way it stands out is the sheer absurdity of it but I couldn't even get my laughs in watching it. The terrible ADR is unrelenting and it boggles the mind, the acting is poor across the board and as much as I don't try to be mean, the 10 people that will read this review could meet up in an empty room and write a better script in 6 hours. I watched this movie for a podcast that's coming to town and while I knew it would be terrible from the production quality to how hard it was to get a copy of, it was inept in every way. The closest comparison I have for it is the infamous unintentional comedy The Room but Gabbi even lacks whatever charm that they stumbled into in that train wreck. I can't recommend this movie, there are better bad movies out there that will satisfy that "so bad its good" guilty pleasure fix (I'd recommend something bombastic like Bad Boys 2 or trashy like London Fields). Maybe the team behind this moves on and does something awesome, its not likely but you never know. I doubt anyone is dying to see this movie however so if you HAVE to check this out, go ahead and watch it. Maybe if you go in with the lowest of low expectations, it won't be seen as flushing an hour and 25 minutes of your life down the toilet.