Take Off

In our continuing series of Shakespearean films, we re-watched Strange Brew (1983). Yes, this Doug and Bob McKenzie vehicle is actually based on Hamlet. Well, kind of. Well, one of the movies within this movie is.

First, remember Doug and Bob McKenzie, the hosts of The Great White North, two Canadian hosers played by Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis on SCTV. The movie starts with them watching themselves in a movie, and eventually running out, chased by the customers who were ripped off by their terrible movie. The gist of this movie (not the one they made) is that they plan to put a live (?) mouse in an empty beer bottle and demand free beer.

This leads to the second movie, the Hamlet one. The owner, John Elsinore, had died, and his wife has married his brother Claude. The boys meet up with his daughter Pam (-let?), played by Lynne Griffith.

In a third, related movie, Brewmeister Max von Sydow (!!) is planning to use the Elsinore Brewery to dispense a mind control drug to the inmates at the Canadian Institute for the Mentally Insane. This part isn't in the original Hamlet.

Considering that Bob and Doug came from Moranis and Thomas trying to make some two-minute filler spots to fulfill "Canadian content" requirements, they come off as solid, worked through characters. When they get out of the Great White North set, they find a world of casual insanity, which suits them fine. Maybe it's because we've been watching a lot of SCTV lately, but we thought this movie held up.

However, we are neutral to Geddy Lee's "Take Off (to the Great White North)" theme.