Men With Brooms on DVD

Paul Gross stars in, co-wrote, and directed this gentle comedy about a group of former buddies thrown together again to win a curling championship for their dead mentor.

Gross is Chris Cutter, who returns home after about ten years after having walked out on his fiancee, his buddies, and his game (not necessarily simultaneously or in that order). His reason for returning is the reading of his/their coach’s will, when the ex-mentor asks the former teammates to team up one more time to try winning the Golden Broom, a championship that just happens to be scheduled for their town.

None of them jumps at the opportunity, though they eventually decide to go for it. Their first adversary is a group of old men who really put the blocks to the team. What Gross and his compatriots need is another mentor, a guiding hand that can help them regain the form they had back in the good old days.

That mentor comes in the form of Cutter’s father (Leslie Nielsen), a partaker of psychedelic mushrooms who takes the team back to basics and teaches them some of the finer points.

Along the way, we’re treated to Cutter and his former fiance (Michelle Nolden), and her baby sister (Molly Parker), a girl who’s been carrying a torch for Cutter since the good old days. We also get to know his teammates quite well, an intersting lot, and of course Nielsen is a crusty old fart who really understands the inherent poetry and requirements of “the roaring game.”

Naturally, between the opening credits and the predictable conclusion, Cutter and his cronies discover success, love, the meaning of life, and what have you.

The first three quarters of “Men With Brooms” is pretty good, with a few genuine belly laughs, but after that it really runs out of steam and ends up leaving the audience rolling its collective eyes in frustration that what started out so well has ended so lamely. It’s too bad.

It’s a pretty good DVD, though, with a bright, sharp and colorful anamorphic widescreen picture (16x9 TV compatible) and good Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. The sound is particularly delicious during the scenes of the game itself: the rocks heading down the ice have the proper rumble that anyone who has ever played the game will remember well.

There aren’t a lot of extras, but you do get a fairly interesting interview with Paul Gross, as well as a featurette that includes interviews with Gross and co-stars Molly Parker, Polly Shannon and others. There’s also the theatrical trailer.

Men With Brooms, from Alliance Atlantis Home Video
103 min. anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1), 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Starring Paul Gross, Molly Parker, Peter Outerbridge, Jed Rees, James Allodi, Polly Shannon and Leslie Nielsen
Produced by Robert Lantos
Written by Paul Gross and John Krizanc, Directed by Paul Gross

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