Monkey Warfare

Most Canadian films get made with high hopes, play for two weeks in maybe three cities and then disappear into a big black hole never to be heard from again. Do me a favour: make sure that Monkey Warfare isn’t one of those movies. Dan (Don McKellar) and Linda (Tracy Wright) are ex-radicals who eke out a living by picking through garbage and garage sales for items they can sell. When their pot connection gets busted, Dan fortuitously meets young, pretty dealer Susan (Nadia Litz), whom he turns on to the lore of militant groups while demonstrating his shaky "commitment.” Unfortunately, the lessons take and Susan starts her own terrorist cell, which not only behaves irresponsibly but threatens the tenuous existence of the two older radicals and their terrible secret. Though deceptively simple, the movie manages to touch on issues such as the apparent impotence of the left, the floating values of various hipster commodities and the un-sureness of undertaking political action. It also deftly sketches many facts of Toronto life, such as bike culture and the rapidly gentrifying Queen West neighbourhood. All this and it’s sardonically funny as well. Pointed, acid-tongued, outraged and outrageous, it’s everything that CanCon is usually not while topping most Yankee pictures as well. This is a film not to be missed. Extras include a joke-y commentary with McKellar, Wright and Litz, and a complete rough-cut of the film with a more pointed yak track by director Reginald Harkema and editor Kathy Weinkauf.