Corner Gas: The Movie – ★ ★ ★ ★ DVD Review

The followup movie to the successful television show, Corner Gas: The Movie was the perfect way to close out the series, and a great reminder of the characters we now only get in reruns.  It was like we never left Dog River, Saskatchewan.  Fitzy, the mayor of Dog River, has lost all the town’s money by making property investments in Detroit.  To save the town, Lacey (Gabrielle Miller) comes up with a plan to enter the town in a “quaintest town in Canada” contest, and for once, her idea is actually accepted by the town.  Davis (Lorne Cardinal) is forced into retirement on his work anniversary, leaving Karen as the lone cop in Dog River.  Fearing for her own job, pregnant Karen (Tara Spencer-Nairn) begins writing tickets like crazy, trying to fill the town’s coffers.  Wanda (Nancy Robertson) begins to play the town against itself to make money for herself to send her son to college by secretly opening a bar and a casino in Davis’ man-cave garage.  Emma (Janet Wright) slowly takes charge of the town’s efforts to keep things on track.  Hank (Fred Ewanuick) is still Hank, and Oscar (Eric Peterson) is still Oscar, and everyone he meets is still a jackass.  But what about Brent (Brent Butt)?  He’s busy trying to rally the town, save the local bar (which he’s now bought), and keep Corner Gas afloat amid competition from a national donut franchise that wants to buy up the land and bulldoze the town for a storage facility.  There’s even some shenanigans (or is it chicanery?) from Wullerton (Ptooie!)

Corner Gas: The Movie was funded by a Kickstarter campaign, which I was too late to get in on, but kind of wish I had.  It would have been nice to help bring the show/movie back, as the series really is Brent Butt’s labour of love.  The film had a very limited (I think it was five days) theatrical release, and then came to video, and was aired on television too.  I’m not sure how successful it was overall.  The film does assume you know the characters and a bit about them, so if you haven’t seen the show, there is a slight learning curve.  Does this limit the potential audience?  I think it probably does, because the show really isn’t known outside of Canada.  A British friend of mine had recently recommended Count Arthur Strong to me.  After we got talking about the similarities between the British and Canadian senses of humour, she asked me to recommend a Canadian comedy series and I of course went with Corner Gas.  I also wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t heard of it.

The story had everything we expect from Corner Gas, how many other films open with a werewolf fighting a robot?  The humour is relaxed and of course has a lot of wordplay and a few zany schemes.  The series was always hailed for it’s authenticity and the lovable and relatable characters, and I’m glad to say that they didn’t change any of that when bringing the story to the big screen.  Like a comfortable old sweater, everything just fit properly.

Bottom Line: If you want to catch a few episodes of the series before watching the movie I’d recommend: S1E1 Ruby Reborn (the series premiere of course), S1E6 World’s Biggest Thing, S1E10 Comedy Night, S1E12 Face Off (of course there’s a hockey episode), S1E13 I Love Lacey, S2E18 Harvest Dance, S4E14 The Good Old Table Hockey Game.  I could go on, but those are a great start.