Canadian Heroes Use Bullet Time
Today I’m doing something different. Today I am reviewing a Heritage Moment that I don’t remember from my youth. I have to assume that this thing was created after I stopped being indoctrinated by television. How will it hold up without the nostalgia factor?
Okay, so we’re over in World War Two. We get all kinds of fast exposition showing that the Canadian Boys are in trouble. They’re surrounded, they don’t have the equipment they need, and they’re also in a war. Basically, it isn’t a fun time. This one guy who is in charge leaves and tells John Osborn he’s in charge. Osborn issues a few orders, then a grenade is thrown into the building. Osborn sacrifices himself by jumping on the grenade to protect the others. That was nice of him.
So, how does it hold up? Without having seen it repeatedly in my formative years, I don’t see anything greatly quotable in here. Would I be saying “They never sent us any bloody jeeps, nevermind artillery” every time I hear artillery mentioned? It’s a possibility, but I can’t be sure. Maybe I’d yell “Grenade! Grenaaaaaaaaaaaaaade!” now and then, but all in all I can’t give this one much of a recommendation based on quotability.
But what about the rest of the piece? We’ve got Osborn’s sacrifice. That’s pretty noble. The sort of thing you want in these. And there’s the fact I learned that “our troops in Hong Kong were the first Canadians to see combat in the Second World War” so it has a little educational value. But the slow motion, man. Like twenty seconds of this minute-long spot are slowmo. That slow motion ruins it for me. I think I could have bought a moment of it, if it cut out after the explosion, but instead it goes on and on to show us the rain of Os-bits in front of his confused men who are still waiting for that order to go. Had it been just that little bit shorter, I still would have found it cheesy and stupid, but a burst of cheesy and stupid is great. 33% of the Moment being that way, is less great.
Up against my reviewing this thing holds up better than Lawson and Hennessy, but I can’t give this thing more than Three out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. I can never say for certain objectively, but I suspect that even if I had grown up with it, this one would be in the middle-ground at best.
