(Canada, 75 min.)
Written and directed by Ian Macleod
Starring: Craig Brown, Meredith MacNeill, Annie Valentina,
Brian McWarren, Josh Macdonald
Lionel: “We’re like Canadian gentlemen robbers. Have you ever seen the movie Foolproof?”Annie: “I Love that movie.”Mike: “That movie’s crap. Canadian movies are garbage.”
The above exchange happens near the end of the Nova Scotian crime comedy Your Money and Your Wife. Lionel (Craig Brown) and Annie (Meredith MacNeill) engage in the same self-referential banter that characterizes their first date. Mike (Mark A. Owen) crashes the party with his bad vibes and, well, a gun. Mike kills the mood by brandishing his pistol in the air and dumping on a hugely expensive Ryan Reynolds dud, but in good-old, self-effacing Canadian film fashion, Your Money or Your Wife sides with this widely derided heist flick in solidarity and gives Mike his comeuppance as Lionel and Annie find love. It might not have the same scale of budget that Foolproof does, but Your Money or Your Wife might be, like, the most Canadian romantic heist comedy ever made.
Your Money or Your
Wife offers an affable micro-budget caper as Lionel becomes the unwitting third
man in a home-invasion-cum-hostage-situation. His girlfriend left him for
another man the night before, so he went on a bender and escaped the frigid
Maritime winter be sneaking into an open garage, which, naturally, is owned by
two clowns named Warren and Elsie (Brian McWarren and Annie Valentina), who await
a stranger to pop by and help them with a robbery. Mistaken identity be damned,
Lionel is simply too polite and sheepish to stand up to a pair of inept wannabe
robbers. (It’s easy to see why his girlfriend dumped him.) He therefore goes out
into the Nova Scotian suburbs with the gun-toting doofuses, who give each other
the pseudonyms of Carlos and Esmerelda, while he coincidentally receives the
name Lionel as a cover.
A Murphy’s Law case of drolly B-grade nincompoopery ensues
as “Carlos” and “Esmerelda” let Lionel lead the mission, which is to enter a
home and force a homemaker, Annie, to lead them to a stash of cash her husband
embezzled from work. The robbers find themselves a bit bamboozled, though, when
they enter the house and Annie, a smart-ass, has the upper hand on their
collective idiocy. The bandits run around the empty house, search cabinets, and
try some tricks from Home Invasion for
Dummies, but nothing works except for the inevitable fact that Annie steals
Lionel’s heart.
Brown and MacNeill are lots of fun together as Lionel and
Annie become allies and work together to thwart the robbers. Brown (Ben’s at Home) brings an everyman charm
to his performance as Lionel assumes the role of a haplessly endearing shmuck
who just can’t catch a break. There’s a bit of Brent Butt and Don McKellar to
this likable loser. MacNeill (Big News from Grand Rock), on the other hand, brings razor-sharp deadpan humour to
her performance. Annie’s sarcasm magnifies the idiocy of Warren and Elsie,
which McWarren and Valentina play with goofy measure.
The pair bands together and finds mutual attraction gabbing
about their disappointing lives and the stupidity of Lionel’s cohorts. Writer/director
Ian Macleod injects the film with ample Canadiana as Lionel and company reference
the CBC, cheap movies, and frigid winter within the quick and witty banter. The
film is very much aware of its own cheapness, which the big empty house, a
symbol of Annie’s own marriage, somewhat amplifies.
The funny cast carries the film with playful repartee as Macleod
lets the script and players up the stakes. Your
Money or Your Wife isn’t much of a heist film or caper, but it doesn’t try
to be, either, as the botched robbery humorously invites a series of
situational gags that lead to Lionel find true love. (Telefilm Canada can only
afford so many wads of fake money each year, anyways.) As Lionel and Annie
brave the case of mistaken identity and endure the robbers, a pair of Jehovah’s
Witnesses, and, eventually, Annie’s husband, Your Money or Your Wife builds a sweet rom-com in which love is the
ultimate score. Making a Canadian heist movie isn’t foolproof, but mild-mannered
comedies like this one score ample laughs with the right set-up.
Your Money or Your Wife is currently doing the festival thing.
