Review: Eating Buccaneers

Katherine Monk, Canwest News Service
December 4, 2009

Eating Buccaneers follows a group of advertising employees trying to make their way through the Ontario woods after their plane crashes.

Photo by: Handout

First-time writer director Bill Keenan takes us on a survival adventure with a group of advertising employees trying to make their way through the Ontario woods after their plane crashes. Though bound to cliche, the movie does find some good satirical moments -- but barely breaks the surface when it comes to substance.

Starring: Peter Keleghan, Leah Pinsent, Shannon Beckner

Rating: Two and a half stars out of five

Canada has a unique knack for survival dramas, especially when they come with a twisted sense of humour.

From the science-fiction absurdism of Vincenzo Natali's Cube to the warped realism of Margaret Atwood's dystopias, the Canadian psyche has a natural affinity for stories of human beings trying to make their way in the wild world with little more than their wits to guide them.

First-time director-writer Bill Keenan picks up on the Canuck wilderness tradition with Eating Buccaneers, a moderately ambitious feature that takes us through a post-plane-crash adventure with a group of advertising agency employees.

A lumberjack version of Lost, the movie opens with an introduction to our cast of characters. First off, there's the executive VP (Peter Keleghan) who immediately feels entitled to the role of commander and starts bossing everyone around -- despite his limited survival knowledge or directional abilities.

Poised in opposition to this symbol of civilization's hierarchy is the lowly copywriter, who keeps his personal life rather secret, but spews the rest of his thoughts without inhibition -- ensuring the entire movie has a third soundtrack of running sarcasm.

Rounding up the rear are the two female characters, the yoga-prone artistic director who says touchy-feely things that irritate everyone, and the junior account executive who can't stop herself from sucking up to any male with more power than she has.

It's a rather predictable assortment of people, but Keenan does a good job scripting these pieces of cardboard into interesting situations, and coming up with lines sharp enough to cut a path through endless cliche.

The best moments come through the smaller portals, where the drama isn't necessarily pushing the story forward, but character friction starts to smoulder as the little quirks kindle larger, underlying tensions between each person, as well as the larger social order.

Because Keenan just doesn't have a big enough budget, or a big enough story, or a more original idea, the movie does feel like an extended TV sketch as it attempts -- somewhat hopelessly -- to stitch shallow fart jokes and sex scandals into something substantial.

For people involved in advertising, the movie will probably be a welcome bit of satire, even though it fails to dig much deeper than its own tagline.