Bang on

The foul-mouthed, fun-loving hosers of Fubar return for a witty, poignant sequel

Last Updated: Thursday, September 30, 2010 | 11:41 AM ET

By Matthew Hays, CBC News

Dean (Paul Spence) and Terry (Dave Lawrence) return for more headbanging mayhem in Fubar 2. (TIFF)

This article originally appeared during the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

One of the most delicate and complex acts in cinema is that of creating a successful sequel. Audiences want more of the same, but also something new and different. Calgary-bred, Montreal-based director Michael Dowse knew the stakes were high heading into FUBAR 2, the sequel to his 2002 cult hit, FUBAR.

'I had to do a sequel, because the Deaner was taking over my dreams. He was really cramping my subconscious.'

— Paul Spence, who plays Deaner in Fubar and Fubar 2

“Yes, there was a lot of pressure,” he says. “But it was good pressure. We knew we wanted to make something funny and we wanted to deliver something excellent for fans of the original.”

The original, of course, introduced us to Dean (Paul Spence) and Terry (Dave Lawrence), two hapless Calgarians who smash furniture, listen to heavy metal and drink beer until they collapse. Beyond being a crazy comedy, FUBAR was in fact an incredibly accurate depiction of a very real milieu, a representation of headbangers that was uncanny. In Dean and Terry, audiences recognized themselves or people they knew, and brand loyalty grew from there.

“The first film wasn’t actually a breakout hit,” notes Dowse. “But people got more into it over time.”

It also represented a key point in the evolution of two classic protagonists in Canadian culture. Dean and Terry were not-so-distant relatives of Pete and Joey from the landmark 1970 Canadian film Goin’ Down the Road, as well as SCTV’s Bob and Doug McKenzie — not to mention Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World’s. (Dowse laughs when I tell him that a sequel to Goin’ Down the Road is now in the works. “I thought we’d already made it,” he says.)

According to Dowse, there had long been talk of a sequel, but it took a while for the idea to gel for the three creative forces behind the concept.

“It was a fine line for us to find,” says Lawrence, who lives in Calgary. “So many [people] are fans of the first film. We wanted to be truthful to the characters, but also make it funny. We thought to ourselves, ‘Where would Dean and Terry be now?’ And that was easy to answer, because of course they wouldn’t have gone anywhere. So we thought we’d revisit their stunted adolescence and see what was happening to them.”

“I had to do a sequel, because the Deaner was taking over my dreams,” says Spence. “He was really cramping my subconscious. Like, I’d wake up in the morning and he’d be there in the evaporating ether of my sleep, saying things like, ‘Punch your boss and shotgun a beer, you pussy!’”

The result is an often hilarious, sometimes surprisingly poignant film, one that joins the very rare ranks of sequels that match the creativity of the original. Arguably, the FUBAR features are precisely what Canadian cinema desperately needs — they are honest films, remarkably well acted, done on very low budgets but successful because they’re full of funny ideas. Unlike the prestige films Canadian filmmakers occasionally attempt in the name of nation-building, the FUBAR films are unpretentious. Sadly, they’ve sometimes been dismissed because they’re comedies. (“It’s true,” Dowse says. “Comedies often don’t get the same props as other genres.”)

Lawrence says fan input influenced the ideas in the sequel. “Many people would say, ‘Dean and Terry were so real, but you left something out.’ This included a duplex, so we made sure we had one in this film. Also, people asked why they never dropped acid in the first film. So we included them using hallucinogenic drugs. Terry flips out early in the film while having a bad trip.”

FUBAR 2 does take a strikingly similar route as Goin’ Down the Road, as Terry and Dean head to Fort McMurray (“The Mac”) to work on the tarsands project. “We decided to send them up north with delusions of grandeur,” says Lawrence. The shots of the tarsands are haunting, given their epic scale and the smoke stacks lining the horizon. “It does look eerie, kind of like Blade Runner,” he says.

While there, they do what many oil-rig workers do in their off-hours: head for the strip club. There, they are caught drinking smuggled-in beer by a stern waitress (Terra Hazelton) who captures the romantic imagination of Terry. This leads to complications for Dean, who doesn’t quite know how to handle competing for his best friend’s attention.

The principal actors met while doing live improv at Calgary’s Loose Moose Theatre Company in the 1990s, and that’s where their banger personas were born. Dowse says that for the second film, they worked from a 30-page treatment, deciding what they wanted each scene to accomplish, and then simply turning on the camera.

For her part, Hazelton gives one of the breakout performances at TIFF 2010.

“Terra is amazing in the film,” says Dowse. “That she could come into this with two already established, well-known characters like Terry and Dean and hold her own was incredible. She’s hilarious in it.”

Some of the most ridiculously funny scenes unfold when Terry and his crazy girlfriend end up fighting. “We would just start screaming at each other, and she would fly off the handle, screaming so loudly you just wanted to do anything to shut her up. The improvising is really fun, but very intense. After a scene, you’d be out of breath because you’re so pumped up.”

In addition to the tarsands, FUBAR 2 features a visit to the legendary West Edmonton Mall, including a swim in the massive wave pool and a stay at the Mall’s hotel (where the trio sleep in a bed shaped as a truck). As a result, FUBAR 2 feels like a strange tribute to the entire province of Alberta.

“I love Alberta,” Dowse says without irony. “I live in Montreal now. Of course, Montreal is more liberal and Alberta is more right-wing, but there’s more of a connection between Quebec and Alberta than people think. Both places have a strong independent streak in them.”

Given the anticipation for FUBAR 2 and the intriguing plotline, it prompts the question: is FUBAR 3 coming soon? Spence sees the duo heading into the realm of sci-fi. “The only logical end to a FUBAR trilogy would be set 5,000 years from now, where a robot Terry is hired to assassinate Dean, who was forced into working for CSIS on a top-secret weapon of mass destruction!”

FUBAR 2 opens Oct. 1.

Matthew Hays is a writer based in Montreal.