So there I was no a Saturday, worn out and beat from working all day. One of those big days for my employer, so its a grueling weekend that everyone must endure. Nevertheless, I opted to avoid the 25 mile trek to Rockyland and contemplate a new release at the local Megaplex of Movies. In looking over the listings, nothing absolutely slayed me in terms of "I gotta see this." But one movie kinda spoke to me in a soft, subtle whisper: Men With Brooms (IMDB - Amazon). The first hook was Leslie Neilson. The second hook was the utterly incomprehendable thought that they would make a movie about CURLING. Yeah, you read that right ... the central theme of the movie is about CURLING. For those who don't know, its a Canadian sport involving stones and a long sheet of ice, vaguely similar to shuffleboard, albeit on a larger scale. I didn't expect much more than to be mildly amused at this movie. I left wanting to tell the world what an awesome movie this is.

First things first ... let me set the context. This is not the standard "Greg"ish B-movie type of movie. Its a fairly sophisticated script with decent to well above average acting, and a lot of subtle humor mixed in with the omnipresent love story as well as the story of a team of curlers who strive to fulfill their recently-deceased coach's dying wish: to win a big championship of some sort.

Now, you don't have to like curling to get into this movie. But you do have to NOT expect a lot of "icepick-to-the-forehead" obvious humor. This movie is well written and from beginning to end, there's not a lull to be found. Paul Gross is the lead actor in the movie, a relative unknown who's done a fair amount of work in Canada, and (of interest to probably nobody but me) was in the pilot of a TV series: XXX's and OOO's, which was a song that Trisha Yearwood did in the hopes of it being the theme song for a network sitcom. I love Trisha Yearwood, so I had to add that.

Leslie Nielson plays Gross' father. Don't look for a lot of slapstick here, but there is some hilarious lines in this one. Among other things, Nielson's character grows mushrooms in his barn, and his introduction to us is with his arm inside a cow, retrieving manure for his crop of "medicinal" mushrooms. It gets better though.

Peter Outerbridge plays a great character as well, basically being the miscreant of the bunch. Molly Parker and Michelle Nolden play the dueling love interests of Gross'. Greg Bryk plays the evil ominous expert curler that the good guys have to knock off. His character is maybe a little too over the top for this movie, but that's about the only knock I can put on this movie, so that ain't bad. Yeah, there's more cast, but you'll have to see the movie, or at least read IMDB for the list. Bottom line here is that for a cast of "unknowns", they did an awesome job.

The highlight scene, for my money has to be the warmup match in which the team takes on some old-timers. Without spoiling much, they lose. The old guys steal the show only temporarily, returning it ever so gracefully to the stars of the movie. The ending, I will not give away. You know there's only two possible outcomes: they fulfill the dying wish, or they miss the mark barely, but learn a valuable life lesson (ala - Mystery, Alaska). I'll let you figure out which.

The movie is rated R, I presume for some sexual themes (some comedic, some Titanic-esque), as well as a smattering of drug-related humor. I don't recall any nudity, other than some male buttocks on full display. So use your judgement if kiddos are involved.

One other note on the movie that caught my ear ... the soundtrack. Overall, its well done. In the final contest, there's a guitar version of "Oh Canada" that is really great. Since its a very modern national anthem, it works far better in a rock motif and this version had me want to stand at attention and salute the Maple Leaf. Far better, IMO, was one song by Kathleen Edwards that made me sit through the credits to get the artists name. The song is "Hockey Skates." Naturally, it piqued my interest in that it mentioned a sport I enjoy. But it was also a nice, sort jazzy acoustic tune. In checking out Edwards' site, the album seems like something I need to investigate further. The soundclips on the site suggest a sorta crossover between alt-country & a little bit of acoustic-jazz-rock. For my purposes, that means a cross between Joy Lynn White and Once Blue. And that's a can't miss combination. There's a healthy dose of The Tragicly Hip in this movie as well, complete with a guest appearance as a competing curling team.

Needless to say, I can't list all the wonderful things there are to say about this movie. I was one of only three people that was in the theater for the midnight showing of this, so if you wanna see an awesome flick with a lot of legroom, this is as good a chance as you'll get.