Red Green's Duct Tape Forever

As a big fan of the long-running Canadian TV series The Red Green Show, I tore into this--their first "feature film"--like a six-year-old male rugrat into a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards (the disc broke in half, but with the handyman's secret weapon--duct tape, discovered long before the Bush administration--I had that puppy fixed and spinning like a top in two shakes of a Canadian goose's tailfeathers). And speaking of duct tape and Canadian geese, Duct Tape Forever finds the Possum Lodge gang with their knee-high waders in a financial twist after a muckety-muck city slicker parks his car in a sinkhole on lodge property, prompting a judge to levy a fine for $10,000 in damages payable within 10 days or else sayonara Possum Lodge. Well, hey, it turns out that $10,000 just so happens to be the third-place prize money for a duct tape contest in Minneapolis, so the boys get to work and before long Red Green (Steve Smith), his nephew Harold (Patrick McKenna), and Dalton Humphrey (Bob Bainborough) hit the trail with a giant Canadian goose made out of duct tape hooked to the back of their truck. Unfortunately, somewhere near the 40-minute mark this funny goose turns into a cinematic turkey; the jokes that work so well in the show's sketch-oriented company just can't be sustained for a whole movie, especially one that relies on such a tired road trip/evil land developer plot. The DVD has a few redeeming features, however, beyond the crystal clear picture and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Steve Smith's humorous commentary track and the 60-minute "making-of" mockumentary Red Green Goes to Hollywood. Completists will want; others should stick with the various collections (such as the Red Green: Stuffed and Mounted compilations from the TV series). Optional. (R. Pitman)