Paul Spence’s relationship with metalhead Dean “The Deaner” Murdoch is as tight as a sash. So much so that the Canadian actor, screenwriter, musician and producer wanted to go back to the roots of the character he played in the films and the television series FUBAR. For this he wrote Deaner ’89a documentary directed by Sam McGlynn (his first feature film) which is not part of the franchise produced and shot by Michael Dowse… but which will surely speak to his fans.
The sidestep taken by this fake documentary begins almost from the outset, when between two interviews with a contemporary Dean who has reached the height of fame, a teenage Dean appears: now 48, Paul Spence slips into the skin, braces and tight jeans of the 17-year-old character, without any cosmetic efforts to make himself look younger. The teenage attitude, on the other hand, is all there and highlights the offbeat and irreverent aspect of the project. Especially since the rest of the cast sticks “temporally” to the characters.
In the late 1980s (kudos here to Richard K. Simpson’s art direction and Heather Neale’s costumes), Dean Murdoch lives in a small town in Manitoba. Around him, his adoptive parents (Will Sasso, from Mad TVas a father who is more effective as a hockey coach than in his professional and personal life, and Lauren Cochrane as a mother disconnected from reality, but plugged into the TV), his sister, Jen (Star Slade, as a sister with words as lively as her quest for answers), and a middle-aged metalhead played by the formidable Mary Walsh (from This Hour Has 22 Minutes), all in rock attitude and horn sign.
A star player on the local hockey team, Dean sees another path open to him when he receives a chest sent by his late biological father. He then discovers heavy metal music… and the fact that he is Métis (roots he shares with Paul Spence), something that had been hidden from him. If the first revelation transports him to nirvana (a few joints also help with that), the second completely disarms him — giving rise to passages that criticize in passing (perhaps not strongly enough) Canadian policies that have led to the placement of young people from First Nations in “good” families (good with a b, as in Whites).
Pastiche of biopic (we are no longer in Walk Hard by Jake Kasdan than in Walk the Line by James Mangold), or even a pastiche of a pastiche by biopic, Deaner ’89 relates thus, without finesse (it is intentional) but with a lot of another f-word, a quest for oneself as bizarre as it is amusing, coated, as it should be, with an essential component to such a universe: music. In addition to several pieces composed by Paul Spence and The Deaner ’89 Studio Band, we hear essentials like Heaven of Warrant, Fantasy by Aldo Nova or… the essential (for several reasons) Shotgun Beer from Nightseeker. Deaner’s old buddies know!