Father & Guns Resurrected Québec Cinema for a Brief Moment
Émile Gaudreault’s De père en flic (Father and Guns) is one of the most successful contemporary Québec films of the 21st century, due to the terrific leading performance from Michel Côté as the legendary Jacques Laroche, an SPVM police officer, who can’t stand his own police son (Louis-José Houde). When an undercover police officer, Jeff Tremblay (Hubert Proulx) gets kidnapped by a biker gang, led by ‘Mononc’ Tardif (Jean-Michel Anctil), Marc (Houde) and Jacques are tasked to befriend a corrupt lawyer (Rémy Girard) at a father-son therapy camp, while also trying to reconnect their tumultuous father-son relationship.
It’s no secret that most Québecers don’t watch contemporary Québec cinema. Even Xavier Dolan doesn’t bode well for mainstream movie viewers. Yes, he shines in the international stage (especially Cannes who devours him), but Dolan makes most of his money doing Québec dubs of American films, such as voicing Gene in the Québec version of The Emoji Movie. Aside from my mandatory Québec cinema courses in school, I’m not particularly fond of contemporary Québec cinéma. It’s either terribly pretentious dramas of people dealing with an existential crisis or some sort, or goofy comedies. Sometimes, gems like Robin Aubert’s Les Affamés (Ravenous) comes out (Aubert also stars in Father & Guns as psychologist Gilbert Bouchard), but there are so few legitimately great contemporary Québec films that I, myself, don’t support it. When I saw Father & Guns back in 2009, on the big screen, it was as if Québec Cinéma rose from the ashes of horrible, overrated movies that no one sees to actually great cinema, while at the same time pandering to everyone.
Fans of buddy comedies will absolutely adore how dysfunctional the relationship between Jacques and Marc is. Michel Côté gives the best performance of his career since Cruising Bar as Jacques Laroche, his monologues are fantastic, the comedic timing between him and Louis-José Houde is perfect. I’m not the biggest fan of José-Houde’s fast-talking comedy, it’s too much at the same time, but director Émile Gaudreault is able to use his style of Comedy brilliantly, especially when he argues with Michel Côté. The chemistry is natural, and naturally hilarious. One scene in particular when he pushes Marc in a lake and has a tadpole in his pants, in which Jacques replies “Ça fait 29 ans que t’a un tétard dans les culottes!” (It’s been 29 years that you have a tadpole in your pants), or the sequence where they hit off each other during a private therapy session, while unleashing their primal scream is an absolute highlight. But the most surprising aspect of the movie, and the #1 reason why the film is wonderful, is the humane aspect of the father-son relationship.
The film’s best extended sequence, where each family member shows a doll that best represents his fahter or son, showcases what the father (or the son) feels inside of them. The sequence is continuously hilarious, and I couldn’t believe how it would get worse and worse and worse until Tim (Patrick Drolet) represents his father with a pile of shit, quoting “d’la marde c’est d’la marde”. (Shit is shit). The scene still has me rolling on the floor — it’s natural comedy that humanizes the father-son relationship. I’m sure that many teenagers related to Tim showing a pile of shit, which represents his father. I’m also sure that other people related to Langis (Patrice Coquereau) when he showed a doll that represented his son, on the inside, but not on the outside. Yes, it’s comedy, but Gaudreault inspires himself very close to reality, and presents many stereotypes of the father & son trying to reconnect for a week, in Nature.
Jokes that I didn’t get as a kid were every single political joke that the screenplay has. One scene in which the Mayor (Michel Laperrière) has is every hand involved with the police and “requests” that maybe the police should kill a prisoner to surprise the biker gang is a jab at former Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay who was accused of corruption and illegal financing with Organized Crime. It’s too good to be true, and still is politically relevant as it is today. The spiel on baby boomers by the sons, and the social commentary on the first generation to break the Catholic mould, which would spark a debate on secularism that would last over 50 years, pairs with Charles Bérubé (Girard)’s comments on René Lévesque and Québec Sovreignity. He compares himself, saying he’s no René Lévesque, even though he smoked, drank and gambled like crazy“Il l’a tu eu fait l’indépendance? HEIN? Il l’a tu fait l’indépenance?” (Did he win his cause?). The Parti Québécois was the first Québec party to propose secularism, and seperating Church from State after the Church was heavily involved in the state’s activities with Maurice Duplessis’ Union Nationale. The political comments on seperation from Catholicism and René Lévesque aren’t just mindless jokes, but incredibly sophisticated and meticulously interconnected.
If you’re not a Québecer, you might hate Father & Guns. I watched it with the english subtitles and they do not reflect the film’s fantastic jokes, because they can’t translate them properly. This is a film purely destined for Québecers, and they don’t need to kneel at Québec cinéma. This is the first truly great contemporary Québec film not directed by self-indulgent hacks who make movies for themselves. This is a film that panders to everyone, that people went to see and became an instant Québec cinema classic. It’s funny, heartwarming, exciting and incredibly humane. The dramatic moments are surprisingly emotionally heavy, especially the final confrontation between Tim and Charles. It’s all too real for people who don’t have a good relationship with their father, and the movie, I believe, will make you want to give your father a call and talk and reconnect. You know your film is good when you want to do something afterwards that will help you reconnect with a loved one.
Father & Guns resurrected contemporary and commecial Québec cinéma, until Patrick Huard’s File 13 (Filière 13) ran it through the ground. See it, even if you’re not a Québecer, just to experience it.
✯✯✯✯½
