Trailer Park Boys: The Big Dirty

The Trailer Park Boys has been a fan favorite on Canada's Showcase Network for a good many years now, I myself, spending almost two years living just outside of Vancover, before recently moving back to my hometown, am proud to say I was among those many rabid fans of the cult classic. So much a fan infact that when I returned stateside I set about getting myself every episode of the series to date, as well as the short films and the introduction movie made in 1999. So when it was stated in late 2005 there would be a new movie based on the series, I was overjoyed. I really was, and with the movie being recently released on DVD, I figured what would be better then doing a review? So allow me to if you will.

First of all, what long time fans need to know is, this is, if anything else an alternate reality take on the story. Its not that they felt the need to toss the ongoing story out, but they felt the need to alter things for the non-fan audiance who would have no idea whats going on otherwise. And in doing this, they were able to mix several bits from through out the series together and make one incredably funny movie, that though not a farthering of the show's plot, is still a great movie that gives a definative happy ending for our heroes.

The movie still focuses on our three main characters, Julian; the mastermind who's always drinking a rum and coke(even wile driving), Ricky; the incredably dumb but always wanting to do whats right for his family pot growing friend of Julian's, and Bubbles; the strange cat loving strange speaking coke bottle glasses wearing shed living life long friend of the two of them. However in the movie, moved up from secondary "drones" to actual members of the crew are the not very smart but always doing the best they can duo of Corey and Trevor, who though in the series aren't seen very often other then as extra help, are given staring and important roles in this alternate take. Its no longer a group of three with two sometimes lackys, its a group of five who always seem to work as a team. I liked this aspect myself, I thought it was a big improvement from the series. And given that this movie marked the end of the road for Corey Bowles and Micheal Jackson (Corey and Trevor), I felt it a fitting way to send them out, giving them a chance to move up to so speak.

All of the show's cast does appear, which I thought was a nice thing, Ricky's family plays a big role in this version, with his father Ray being more of a fatherfigure then before, and some really interesting and well writen story in the relationship between Ricky and his girlfriend Lucy as well as alot of interaction with Ricky and his daughter Trinity. This movie's version of Lucy is infact bisexual, and when you first meet her she is living with her best friend Sarah, just like on the show, except its strongly implied at the start of the movie Lucy and Sarah are sleeping together. Ricky says it himself "Back in high school Lucy fucked alot of girls one of those girls was Sarah, back in high school I fucked alot of girls and one of those girls was Sarah, Then Me and Lucy met at a party and realized that we were fucking alot of the same girls, so we just started fucking. And one thing lead to another...". In the show its never out and out stated how close Lucy and long time trailer mate Sarah had, we just knew that Lucy was going out to Ricky's car, getting high and drunk and fucking, then going back in the Trailer she and sarah lived in. Not a bad touch, but an interesting change of characters.

Ricky is living in his car, a 1975 Chrystler New Yorker that has been beat to hell and is missing door windows all around and a passanger side door, its never explained in the movie why he's living in "The Shitmobile" as its called on the show or how he got into ownership of it, the show does state how all of this came about, as well as how the door came off. All Ricky says on the matter "I've been fucking living in cars most of my fucking life, I'm fine with it.". In the movie just like on the tv show, Ricky is a master weed grower and states many times to make money for his family he needs to get back to that.

Julian is pretty much unchanged, he does however not have any of his guns present which he has had through out the series. He is however driving the tricked out black monte carlo he stole from some rival drug dealers in season 5, though this version doesn't have the spoiler on the back made out of hockey sticks, and you never hear the music that is trademark Julian playing whenever he drives up. He is still a drunk and still the mastermind. He also begins a relationship with a stripper who is also a wanted criminal in the movie, and at the end, you find out he waited for her, Julian's relationships normally don't last very long and there aren't many of them given his almost constant need to plan and commit crimes of some sort to make money. An interesting change to give the character more depth, nicely done.

Bubbles appears as he did before he went to prison in the later seasons, he doesn't really want to be doing crime, but he knows that Ricky and Julian need him, and he also knows the money they make will help pay for feeding his 20 or so cats. He still fixes shopping carts and sells them back to the shopping centers in the area and still drives his go-kart like a mentaly handicapped nascar driver.

J-Roc and Tyrone also appear in the movie, even though its very breif and they don't have many speaking lines, J-Roc does get to do his rap song "Trailer Park Life" to a longer extent then he did when he preformed it on the show. J-Roc and Tyrone were always a great comedic bit of color added to the show, I feel abit bad they weren't really allowed to be in the movie more. For those interested in getting the series after seeing the movie J-Roc's "I don't hear no heart dawg" monologue from season 6 is one of the funnyest bits in the entire history of the show. I'm kind of sad given all the other things that were worked in, they didn't work that in. So far one down spot in a great movie, not bad at all honestly.

Jim Lahey the drunk Trailer Park supervisior and his assitant, the shirtless cheeseburger loving former male hooker turned fat bastard known as Randy are present as well, though I do wish they had bigger roles, Randy has very little lines and just one fight scene with Ricky, and he keeps his pants on, instead of taking them off as he normally does to fight Ricky, and most of Jim's lines are just drunken rants and failed attempts to turn the boys into the cops for various things. I did like how they worked The Shit Hawk rant into the script, I would have rathered the Shit Blizzard one, or maybe The Winds of Shit rant, but The Shit Hawks was a good choice too. Jim tends to speak in terms like that when he's drunk "The Shit Hawk" "The Shit Blizzard" "Shit Leapards can't change their spots" things like that. Was funny to see him continue this in the movie.

The plot of the movie basically follows the same plot as a season of the show, Ricky and Julian are released from Prison, and come back with a plan. Well this time the plan is to steal canadian dollar and two dollar coins (Loonys and Toonys they're called), Julian is told this plan by a man in prison called Caddilac, who states that the way to do it is steal change from various means, theif under $1000 is not jailtime in Canada, so if you were cought, you don't go to jail, you just pay a fine and do some community service. Caddilac says "this is how you do it, everyone in here is looking for The Big Dirty, the big pay off, but we all end up here, but I figured out how to make it work... its all in change" Julian believed it to be a brilliant plan and sets about making this happen once they leave jail.

I liked the overall feel of this movie, the alternate takes on the whole cast of The Sunnyvalle trailer park and those that know them. Some other various things were changed, there is no mention of Jim Lahey's daughter, Cyrus is replaced by strip club owner Sonny, there is an alternate take on how Lucy for her fake boobs, Donny the guard isn't friends with Julian and infact is a hockey rival of Ricky's, there is nudity, which is new to the series as well. And dispite things like this that would make a hardcore fan piss and moan, they are great welcomed changes that fit so well into the story that you don't really mind they're reused episode plots and gags, mostly because they're still funny as hell.

I will say though, I miss the camera crew. For those that aren't old school fans, the camera crew interacted alot with the cast, it started out in the 1999 movie with Julian hiring a film crew to follow him aorund for a month because he felt he was going to die and wanted to leave some sort of mark he was here. its assumed that the film crew decided to stay and film all that goes on as a reality show we can only assume is called The Trailer Park Boys. Even with out that, I did love how they worked Ricky and Lucy's wedding into the movie as well as Ricky's courtroom rant that still stands as the most amount of times he's said "fuck" in one statement.

I would say if you are a long time fan like myself, you will love this movie, but if you are not a fan, go see it or rent it or download it or whatever anyway, and if you like it go check out the series. Its great fun.

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Laz