Men with Brooms Movie Review

In the litany of movies about the sport of curling, Men with Brooms stands out as one of the best, if not the best ever!

Okay, there are no other movies about curling (to my knowledge), and this film is short of spectacular, but it's amusing enough to merit a peek. It's certainly Leslie Nielsen's best work in many years.

Writer/director/star Paul Gross must really love curling, and that love unfortunately doesn't translate to an American audience who couldn't care less about this "sport." (When it says on the DVD box that the movie "took the country by storm," one presumes they're talking about Canada. Or Iceland.)

Much like its many, many contemporaries -- from Mystery, Alaska to Blow Dry -- Men with Brooms has an underdog team of losers overcoming the big bad team of bullies from the town next door. In this case, it's a bunch of antisocial freaks (low sperm count, bad relationship) facing off against some guys in vinyl outfits. And Leslie Nielsen is their new coach, in kilt and sticking them with old-fashioned brooms.

Naturally, it becomes half romantic comedy and half Remember the Titans, but when your movie is based on a glorified shuffleboard game, it's difficult to get caught up in the "thrill of it all." Molly Parker and Nielsen excepted, the virtually unknown cast lends a Full Monty scrappiness to the production that makes the movie somewhat loveable. Not completely loveable -- but what underdog movie since The Bad News Bears has been? -- but certainly hard to hate.