RARA-AVIS: Bon Cop/Bad Cop (was Banff)

From: Kevin Burton Smith (kvnsmith@sbcglobal.net)
Date: 02 Nov 2008

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    Sorry about the delay -- this one got hung up in the ether, and I just noticed it in my bounce back box...

    On Oct 25, 2008, at 5:08 AM, rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com wrote:

    > Are they usually accurate? I find it very distracting when the
    > subtitles or closed captioning vary from the spoken words.

    The American version of BON COP/BAD COP is a case in point. It's a Canadian action flick/satire about two Canadian cops, one English, one French, who bicker constantly while working a case. The two leads trade barbs in both languages unapologetically, but some of the American subtitles aren't so much translations as interpretations, rewritten to avoid cultural references that would only confound most Americans.

    I know enough French that it was distracting to see how what they were saying was represented in the subtitles.

    Ten again, I think most Americans would be confounded by it, anyway. It's not a great flick (although no worse than most action flicks), but for Canadians it is great fun, full of gentle and not-so-gentle satire, sweeping stereotypes so overdrawn they're funny and some genuinely funny, if preposterous scenes of (mostly) Montreal's finest in action. There is also sort of jaundiced worldview at play here that ensures everyone is equally offended.

    I'm not sure if mere action and a sort of cynical world view qualifies it as hard-boiled, but it's colloquial as hell, and the humour bears a definite noirish tinge at times.

    I'd give it four tabarnaques and a chalice.

    And Steve wrote:

    > In the same vein...and in another Œlangue¹...you should hear some
    > French
    > natives (like me) talk about Œles Canadiens¹ and their Œbastard¹
    > French...

    Actually, since Quebec was conquered by the British before the French revolution (which allegedly "democratized" the language) there's an argument that the French in Canada is actually "purer" than that spoken in France.

    Kevin Burton Smith www.thrillingdetective.com

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