Canadian Bacon

This article is about the film. For other uses, see Canadian bacon.

Canadian Bacon
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Michael Moore
Produced by	Michael Moore
Written by	Michael Moore
Starring	Alan Alda John Candy Bill Nunn Kevin J. O'Connor Rhea Perlman Kevin Pollak G.D. Spradlin Rip Torn
Music by	Elmer Bernstein Peter Bernstein
Cinematography	Haskell Wexler
Editing by	Michael Berenbaum Wendey Stanzler
Studio	Dog Eats Dog Films, Propaganda Films, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, Maverick Films
Distributed by	Gramercy Pictures Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Release date(s)	September 22, 1995
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$11 million
Box office	$178,104

Canadian Bacon is a 1995 comedy film which satirizes Canada – United States relations along the Canada – United States border written, directed and produced by Michael Moore. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, and has the distinction of being the final completed film to star John Candy (despite having been filmed before Wagons East!).

Premise

The President of the United States (Alan Alda) has not led his country into war, and his approval rating falls. His National Security Advisor Stuart Smiley (Kevin Pollak) suggests Canada as a new enemy based on a news segment about a brawl between Canadians and Americans over national beer preference. A local American sheriff Bud Boomer (John Candy), who was responsible for the brawl, is caught up in the idea of invading Canada and leads fellow Americans to the country to commit the "most serious of all" Canadian crimes, littering. The so-called invasion is foiled, but because of Boomer's actions, the fabricated war turns into a real one.

Cast

• John Candy as Sheriff Bud Boomer, Sheriff of Niagara County
• Alan Alda as President of the United States
• Bill Nunn as Kabral, Deputy sheriff of the Niagara County Sheriff Department
• Kevin J. O'Connor as Roy Boy, friend of Sheriff Bud Boomer
• Rhea Perlman as Honey, Deputy sheriff of the Niagara County Sheriff Department
• Kevin Pollak as Stu Smiley, National Security Advisor
• G. D. Spradlin as R.J. Hacker, Owner of Hacker Dynamics
• Rip Torn as General Dick Panzer, U.S. Army Chief of Staff
• Steven Wright as Niagara Mountie
• Jim Belushi as Charles Jackal, news reporter for NBS News
• Richard E. Council as Russian President Vladimir Kruschkin
• Brad Sullivan as Gus
• Stanley Anderson as Edwin S. Simon, news anchor for NBS News
• Wallace Shawn as Canadian Prime Minister
• Michael Moore as Redneck guy
• Dan Aykroyd (uncredited) as Ontario Provincial Police officer
• Ed Sahely (uncredited) as Mountie

Production

The film was shot in late 1993, in Toronto, Hamilton, and Niagara Falls, Ontario; and Buffalo and Niagara Falls, New York. Scenes depicting the rapids of the Niagara River were actually filmed at Twelve Mile Creek in St. Catharines. Parkwood Estate in Oshawa was the site for the White House, and Dofasco in Hamilton was the site for Hacker Dynamics. The scene where the American characters look longingly home at the US across the putative Niagara River is, in fact, them looking across Burlington Bay at Stelco steelworks in Hamilton, Ontario.

The hockey game and subsequent riot (due to insulting Canadian beer) was shot at the Niagara Falls Memorial Arena in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and the actors portraying the police officers (who eventually join in the riot upon hearing that Canadian beer "sucks") are wearing authentic Niagara Regional Police uniforms.

The film has a notably high number of cameos by Canadian actors. As an example, Dan Aykroyd, who is Canadian, appears in the movie uncredited as an Ontario Provincial Police officer. He stops Sheriff Boomer's truck which has anti-Canadian graffiti painted on it in English and lets Boomer and his "heroes" go after the truck has been spraypainted with the graffiti translated into French. This scene was filmed along the Niagara Parkway in Niagara-on-the-Lake, north of Niagara Falls.

Reception

Canadian Bacon received poor reviews from film critics, receiving a 14% from Rotten Tomatoes.

Stephen Holden in a 1995 review concluded "The movie is so busy spearing the dragons of American aggression that its cartoonish vision of Canadians as wimpy Pollyannas has little resonance."

See also

• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a 1964 Stanley Kubrick comedy about a fictional element of the cold war
• The Mouse that Roared
• The Canadian Conspiracy, a 1986 fictional documentary about how Canadian entertainers are conquering TV and movies in the United States.
• Wag the Dog, a 1997 film about a war devised for similar reasons
• War Plan Red, also known as the Atlantic Strategic War Plan, was a plan for the United States to make war with Great Britain, by attacking Canada.
• Canadian Idiot, a parody of Green Day's "American Idiot", by "Weird Al" Yankovic, which explores similar themes, and actually mentions the idea of a "preemptive strike" against Canada.
• "A Speculative Fiction", a song by Canadian band Propagandhi that explores a war between Canada and the U.S.
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, the 1999 South Park film about a similar war (though in this case the war's reason is a moral panic rather than explicitly to boost a president's sagging poll numbers).
• The real life War of 1812 between the United States and British North America (now Canada).

External links

• Canadian Bacon at the Internet Movie Database
• Canadian Bacon at Box Office Mojo
• Canadian Bacon at Rotten Tomatoes