Who’s Yer Father?: The Misadventures of PEI's only PI is Pretty Broad Humour for Such a Small Island
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-minus
If nothing else, by the time you finish watching the all-in dumb Maritime comedy Who’s Yer Father?, you’ll have absorbed the equivalent of an entire glossary of Prince Edward Island-isms.
A thuggish black-market lobster fisherman is referred to as, “tough as a boiled owl.” Disbelief is registered with the phrase "G'way with ya!" An adulterous couple are referred to as “banging pissers.”
And “Who’s yer father?” is the all-purpose conversation starter, leading to all sorts of verbal networking of friends, relatives and acquaintances.
Sleuths Larry and Rhonda keep an eye on the seedy underbelly of PEI in Who’s Yer Father?
Not surprisingly, Who’s Yer Father? was the number one film in Charlottetown last week, when it made its Atlantic Canada debut. The film opens in Toronto this Friday (with a Q&A appearance by director Jeremy Larter and co-stars Chris Locke and Susan Kent) and other cities across Canada.
(Click HERE to watch Bonnie Laufer’s interview with Larter, Locke and Kent)
In Larter’s film, Who’s Yer Father? is also the name of PEI’s only private investigation agency, a barely above-water operation, run by an awkward, underachieving schlub named Larry Constable (Locke) whose cases involve such things as retrieving unreturned casserole dishes to their rightful owners.
It’s a testament to the incompetency of the Island’s lone PI that he goes on stake-outs in a van with his company name and picture on the side.
All that changes with the appearance at his door of, ostensibly, the richest man in PEI. Luke Thorne (Matt Wells) controls the sale of seafood in the province and wants Larry to investigate a rogue black-market operator named Glenn Misener (Steve Lund) whom he suspects is cutting into his profits.
So, begins an investigation on the other side of the Island (a three-hour drive), where Larry meets Rhonda (Kent), an ambitious ditz whose dream is to own a high-end soft ice cream machine for her store. And a crime-solving partnership is born.
Complications ensue immediately. There’s a pot-smoking young woman named Junior (Jess Salgueiro) who may or may not have committed a murder, an affair between the client’s wife (Kaniehtiio Horn) and Glenn, a dip into half-baked blackmail schemes, and a body or two.
All that, and the provincial police are nowhere to be seen.
As a genre, stupid criminals have been tapped to great effect by the likes of the Coen brothers and Elmore Leonard. Who’s Yer Father? obviously isn’t in the same league (or budget), but it is committed to its story and to lowering the bar on its gags as they pile up with each plot twist.
And Locke and Kent have an eccentric romantic chemistry that gives you someone to cheer for, even when they’re doing sketchy things. Ex-Second City trouper Marc Hickox plays Larry’s drunken buddy Blair, which is kind of gilding the lily, giving a dumb protagonist a stupider sidekick. Still, Hickox brought his chops.
Who’s Yer Father? is a pretty broad comedy for such a small island. But it has some charm, and a silly laugh or three.
Who’s Yer Father? Directed by Jeremy Larter. Starring Chris Locke, Susan Kent and Kaniehtiio Horn.