I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM
aka A Man in Uniform
Dir. David Wellington, 1993
Canada, 97 min.
FRIDAY, MARCH 6 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 17 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 26 – 7:30 PM
Some ideas deserve more than one film, and more than one author. They deserve some time to knock around the cinematic zeitgeist awhile in work that is not so much derivative as conversational. In this Canadian film from 1993, Tom McCamus plays Henry Addler, a bank clerk trying to make it as a full time actor while caring for his ailing father. Henry has just landed a reoccurring role on a TV police drama. To get into the part he takes his police uniform home and begins to walk the streets of Toronto looking for real life at its worst – and the goodness that only authority can sustain. Eventually, he also acquires a gun. I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM makes no secret of its debt to TAXI DRIVER. The similarities to the latter film marks one of many self-referentially cinematic elements. The emotional core of the film remains hidden just beneath the surface of a series of film tropes, common imagery, and stock characters. It’s a deeply personal and unique film, but every step of the way it struggles with cliche like an actor might struggle to give something real to a bit part. This is exactly the point, this is a film about pain that’s so hard to explain because it’s been explained so many times before, and about the roles common tragedies force us to play.