It was 20 years ago already. Producer Richard Goudreau and director Louis Saïa, the duo behind the megahit The Boysbelieved to repeat their achievement at the box office by offering a daring action comedy, The dangerous ones. But what had been presented as a Quebec Tarantino will prove a resounding failure on all counts. Everything was there, however, on paper: a record budget, unprecedented media hype, a catchy soundtrack and a five-star cast, with Véronique Cloutier and Stéphane Rousseau taking their first steps on the big screen. A look back at one of the worst turnips in the history of Quebec cinema.
Difficult to summarize the screenplay of the film in a few lines as it is dense. But essentially, the story revolves around Roxane Labelle (Véronique Cloutier), an international rock singer who is kidnapped by kidnappers the night of a concert. Her father and incidentally her manager, played by Marc Messier, asks his clumsy accountant (Stéphane Rousseau) to pay the ransom and bring his daughter back to safety. There will be a lot of incredible adventures, Hollywood stunts and product placements as subtle as questionable jokes. All with narration by James Hyndman, with appearances by Pierre Marchand and even Patrick Lagacé. Eclectic, you say?
This is indeed the main problem of Dangerous when we listen to the film again 20 years later. Some scenes are incredibly violent, visibly shot with great resources, which effectively echoes the cinema of Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. But at other times, the level of the game is so cartoonish and the production so rudimentary that we rather believe we are witnessing an episode of The little life.
“What we wanted, at the start, was a background of seriousness with a few jokes. It was really meant to be a pastiche of Snap, by Guy Ritchie. It was a genre that we had never done in Quebec and, for the first time, we had a budget that allowed it. But the storyline changed so much along the way. We kept adding jokes. It gave something very caricatural, very overplayed, ”laments one of the two co-screenwriters, Huguette St-Denis.
Business failure and criticism
At the time, Huguette St-Denis had just left the National School of Humor and was still called Stéphane St-Denis. Since her transition about ten years ago, she has lived on social assistance, and has never managed to work again in the world of television. Huguette St-Denis says she is disillusioned with the show business Quebecer, and its experience on The dangerous is there among other things for something.
The release of the film, in December 2002, will have been painful for her, so critical were the murderers. “The film is appalling, nothing less, and insults the Quebec public,” wrote Odile Tremblay in The duty. The Press will give a star to Dangerous.
And the general public will for a rare time agree with the journalists. Shot with $7.2 million, the largest budget for a Quebec film at the time, The dangerous will raise less than $500,000 at the box office. A flop that seems to have left its mark.
It’s really not the worst Quebec film of all time
The other co-screenwriter, Sylvain Ratté, declined our interview request. Producer Richard Goudreau did not call us back. As for the director Louis Saïa, he contented himself with acknowledging that he had experienced a crossing of the desert after The dangerous. Most of the cast members were also unwilling to go back on their experience.
“When we meet again, we laugh about it. We really moved on. But I know people have been hurt, so I’m always a little hesitant to come back publicly on that… But once it was said, the truth is that from the start, I didn’t feel it. crap, that movie! ” confides Véronique Cloutier, who did not want to defend The dangerous in the media upon its release.
Bad feeling
The popular host of Fury had allowed himself to be convinced by Richard Goudreau, a great friend of his father at the time. She keeps the memory of a difficult shoot, marked by countless delays.
“The filming was extraordinary. We had a lot of fun, even if, indeed, we noticed that it was much more humorous than what we had been sold. On the other hand, there were delays such as I have never seen. Sometimes we would show up for a day of shooting and not shoot at all. I remember that I spent hours playing Xbox without leaving my dressing room, ”says Didier Lucien, who played Tiger, one of the villains in the film.
Didier Lucien says he fell asleep during the premiere. Véronique Cloutier was rather marked by the unease that reigned in the cast after the team screening. At least, she consoles herself by telling herself that she was able to achieve thanks to the Dangerous one of her fantasies: that of being a singer.
When we meet again, we laugh. […] But I know people have been hurt, so I’m always a little hesitant to come back publicly on that… But once it was said, the truth is that from the start, I didn’t feel it. crap, that movie!
Part of the team initially wanted their character to do lip-sync on the soundtrack, composed by Stéphane Dufour, Éric Lapointe’s faithful accomplice. It is finally indeed the voice of the host that we hear on the two songs taken from the film. Well almost. On The ballad of the dangerous, Véronique Cloutier was unable to reach the first notes. Her voice was therefore paired in the studio with that of the backing vocalist, who had recorded the demo.
No, Vero is not Callas, and never claimed to be. And yet, the soundtrack is probably what rings the least false in this film. There is no doubt that the two songs of Dangerous had everything it took to become radio hits if they had been sung by a France D’Amour or a Laurence Jalbert.
Rehabilitate the film?
An English teacher from Saguenay, Marc-André Roy, even launched a fundraiser in 2018 so that The ballad of the dangerous is entitled to a karaoke version. One thing leading to another, he came to develop a cult for this nanar, by collecting derivative products. Marc-André Roy has since hosted a podcast on The dangerous and presented the film this summer at the Fantasia festival for the 20e anniversary.
“Initially I thought it was a bad movie, but my opinion changed over time. It’s a movie that really tried to think outside the box. It’s clumsy, I agree. But there is a real attempt to make a Hollywood film, whereas in Quebec, our cinema is very slow in general. Just for that, it deserves attention. It’s really not the worst Quebec film of all time, ”says the man who wrote the very extensive Wikipedia page for the film.
Marc-André Roy is of the opinion that The dangerous was perhaps treated unfairly by critics and the highly elitist film community, who resented Telefilm Canada for awarding Richard Goudreau a generous “performance envelope” of almost $3 million to congratulate him on commercial success of Boys.
Would we have been too hard with The dangerous ? The public can judge for themselves. The film is available for free on YouTube.