The Trailer Park Boys Christmas Special

Having seen all of the episodes of the Canadian television series "Trailer Park Boys" I can assure you that if you're a fan of the show, you're going to dig the Christmas special. If you're not a fan, I think the short running time makes it at least worth your while so you can choose for yourself whether or not you want to keep going and catch more of the boys. The series (and this movie), is shot documentary style, with a group of camera men following the residents of Sunnyville Park. The trailer park is filled with colourful characters, the most notable of which are the three boys: Ricky (Robb Wells) a dope-dealing idiot , Julian (John Paul Tremblay) a greedy crook who will stop at nothing to make a buck and their not particularly clever, but earnest friend Bubbles (Mike Smith). This holiday season, Julian is up to his old tricks again. He's stealing Christmas presents and decorations and re-selling them to the residents of the park in order to make cash. To avoid distractions from Ricky's ex-girlfriend, he bails out his friend from jail (something Ricky isn't particularly pleased about because he loves being incarcerated during the holidays). Meanwhile, Bubbles just wants to have a merry Christmas, something that hasn't really happened since he was abandoned by his parents as a child.

With the commercial breaks, this movie comes to about an hour, so you're looking at about a 46 minute special on DVD. If you're a fan of the series, it's actually a prequel episode (set in 1997) that shows the origins of a lot of the characters' crippling problems, most notably the alcoholic park supervisor Jim Lahey (John Dunsworth) and his lover, the male prostitute Randy (Patrick Roach). The series stays true to its roots by giving us a Christmas special... that's not particularly heart warming, still contains just as many stupid stunts from the boys and has plenty of cursing, drinking and dope. The special was technically aired as an episode, but as far as I know, it isn't included in any of the season box sets, so if you're a big fan of the show, I think you'll find yourself adding this to your regular queue of Christmas films, if only because the running time is less than an hour and it breaks up all of that Christmas cheer nicely. If you're not a fan of the show, this special is a nice introduction, but if the humor isn't your cup of tea, I don't think this story will change your mind.

I'm a casual fan of the show, having seen most of it more by happenstance than by actually physically going out of my way to catch it when it was playing on Showcase. I have only mild affection for it, but I do recommend that you check it out, because why not really. If you're a fan of Sunnyvalle, I think you'll go nuts for "The Trailer Park Boys Christmas Special". (On DVD, December 24, 2014)