The Gazette
14 February 2007

We shoot, we score

The Rocket dominates. Bon Cop, Bad Cop is best picture

by Brendan Kelly

As expected, it was all Quebec all the time at the Genie Awards last night in Toronto and, just as predictably, the big winner at the Canadian film awards ceremony was Maurice Richard. The biopic of the legendary Canadiens scoring star - titled The Rocket in English - came into the Genies with a leading 13 nominations and the film dominated the awards, taking nine Genies, including wins for Roy Dupuis as best actor for his sizzling turn in the title role, Julie Le Breton as best actress for playing his long-suffering wife, and Stephen McHattie as supporting actor for his intense turn as longtime Canadiens coach Dick Irvin.

But the biggest prize eluded Maurice Richard. After setting the record as top-grossing local film ever here in Canada, bilingual action-comedy Bon Cop, Bad Cop took the top honours at the Genies, winning as best picture. But the Quebec-made hit about a Quebecois detective reluctantly working a murder investigation with a colleague from Ontario, which sold $13 million worth of tickets last year, was shut out in most of the other categories. It won only one other Genie, for best sound. It had ten nominations. Bon Cop also took home the Golden Reel Award as the top-grossing Canadian film of the year, as previously announced.

In a phone interview just minutes after winning as best actor, an emotional Dupuis talked about just how important it was for him to win for playing a cultural icon like Maurice Richard.

Roy Dupuis rocked as The Rocket.

"It was an important role for me because I had a chance to meet him and he really opened up to me," Dupuis said. "We really connected. We got close very quickly and then he died. It was like losing a friend. So playing Maurice, I felt I had a responsibility to this man I knew."

Dupuis said it was important to tell a new generation of Canadians the story of this man who meant so much to Quebecers not just for his heroics on the ice but for what he represented for French-Canadians at the time.

"It's very simple," Dupuis said. "There was this inequality between French- and English-Canadians in Quebec at the time, and there was this very simple guy and by being the best at something, everyone could relate to that.

"He woke up the people. He became a symbol of freedom. He empowered the people. I think it's an important part of our story as Canadians."

Onstage, Dupuis had the line of the soiree, saying, "I guess he's not really dead because he's still winning."

Charles Biname also won as best director for his work on Maurice Richard and he agreed with Dupuis that the life of The Rocket was an important story to tell.

Almost all of the major Genies went to Quebec-made films. Robert Favreau and Gil Courtemanche took the hardware for adapted screenplay for Un dimanche a Kigali, based on Courtemanche's acclaimed novel of the same name. Montreal writer-director Philippe Falardeau won for best original screenplay for Congorama, his complex, emotionally charged tale of a Belgian man who comes to rural Quebec to explore his roots.

Shortly after winning, Falardeau sounded genuinely surprised to have nabbed the Genie. "I'm really stunned," he said. "I really didn't think I'd have any chance because the film is not even distributed yet in English Canada. ... It touches me because my films have always been well-received in English Canada, particularly at the film festivals across Canada. There's something in my writing, my humour, that makes my films appealing for English-Canadians."

In one of the only major wins for an English film, Carrie-Anne Moss garnered the Genie for supporting actress for her role opposite Sigourney Weaver in Snow Cake. The two leading English-Canadian contenders, Terry Gilliam's Tideland and Julia Kwan's Eve and the Fire Horse, were nominated in six and five categories respectively, but both were shut out last night. It had been previously announced that Kwan won the Claude Jutra Award for best first feature, in a tie with Quebec director Stephane Lapointe for La Vie secrete des gens heureux.

The Genie Awards ceremony was not broadcast live. Instead, a one-hour package of highlights, interviews and film clips ran right after the ceremony on a number of CHUM specialty channels, including Bravo and MusiMax. The lovable losers from The Trailer Park Boys TV series and movie turned up frequently during the Genies show, but their film, the biggest English-Canadian hit of the year, failed to win anything at the podium.