Movie: Bon Cop Bad Cop

[sholio]

This movie was SO. VERY. CANADIAN.

Also ... if you have a problem watching police/law enforcement brutality on TV (which I sort of do) ... wow this is really not the movie for you. XD I enjoyed it a lot but I kept having to shut down the part of my brain that kept screaming BUT THEY CAN'T GET AWAY WITH THAT!

Having said that, it was a ridiculously fun movie, and I think the thing I loved most about it was the casual bilingualism - the way that the characters shifted between French and English, or lapsed into their native language (whichever it was) for idioms they couldn't remember how to say in the other one, or missed just enough of what the other person was saying for the conversation to derail itself. I guess it helps that, despite the fact that I don't remember enough of my high school French to make myself understood in even the most rudimentary fashion, I do still understand enough of it that I could get at least some of the basics in the movie (like the difference between the Ontario cop's European-French accent and the Québécois French that most of the characters were speaking).

This scene (link goes to Youtube) gives you an idea of what the whole movie is like, in terms of language -- and police brutality, and profanity (not work safe!). XD (Hey, I can curse in Québécois French now! Yay?)

Comments

[scrollgirl]

Oh my God, so. much. police. brutality. Thankfully the scene you linked to feels... enough like an artifice that I'm not in that "cop show" head-space. ("Coy" was totally the wrong word.)

Damn, that's a lot of French profanity! I wonder if my Montreal cousins have seen this!

[sholio]

Actually, I understood what you meant with "coy" -- but yeah, that scene is so over-the-top that you can't really take it seriously. Unlike some other parts of the movie, that made me make this face a lot: D: D: D:

I grew up with the Lethal Weapon movies, so I suppose that it's totally in keeping with its genre; I've just become more sensitive to it, I guess. Still, it was a really fun popcorn movie (as long as I didn't think too hard about it). And I learned a whole lot of really ... interesting French from that movie that I didn't learn in school. *g*

[tei]

For a few days this summer I roomed next to a flute player who screamed "TABERNAC!" when she got frustrated practicing... yeah, I'm not sure what to make of the fact that anglo swearwords are all sex-related and Quebecois swearwords are all religion-related. WHICH IS MORE OBSCENE?

[sholio]

For some reason that cracks me up utterly -- not the specific swear words so much as the idea of a flute player who goes into screaming profanity-laden meltdowns when they hit a wrong note. XDDD

Religion-related swears are not that odd -- I think most languages/cultures, or at least a lot of them, have something like it -- but what is interesting to me about Quebecois profanity is that the religious swearwords are the really vile ones, compared to English where they're actually on the quite mild end; "Jesus!" isn't nearly as profane as "shit!" or "fuck!", but in Quebec it seems to be the other way around ...