Although no release date has been set for the U.S., No Clue will undoubtedly be of interest because of the success of Brett Butt’s long-running half-hour comedy series, Corner Gas. Like Corner Gas, No Clue takes a genre (small town life for Corner Gas; hard-boiled detective mystery for No Clue) and tailors it to the low-key presence of writer/star Butt.
Vancouver novelties (‘specialty crap’) salesman Leo Falloon (Brent Butt) gets in over his head when a femme fatale named Kyra (Amy Smart, Crank, Justified) mistakenly enters his office – which is next door to a real PI’s office), and pours out her sad tale. It’s like something out of a noir film of the 40s and 50s, but soft-boiled. There are even Dutch angles and venetian blinds!
Falloon may be out of his league, but he takes the dame’s case and then has to see it through because, hey! He promised a pretty girl and he always keeps his promises to pretty girls (though, let’s face it, this is probably the first time that he’s ever had to do so… but, ethics!).
Even though it’s filmed in color, No Clue feels like a black & white movie – the plot twists like a Raymond Chandler novel and there’s plenty of witty dialogue, especially between Falloon and his friend Ernie (David Koechner, Justified, The Office, Anchorman 2). Ernie functions as the voice of reason in a sad sack kinda way.
Butt makes use of his Canadian setting in a lot of cool ways, but especially in his dialogue. Falloon, on his second encounter with someone wielding a gun, blurts out, ‘What’s with all the guns? This is Canada!’ Also, important to the plot, is the fact that Vancouver is a port city – a yacht is involved. That’s all I’m saying.
The actual case involves the disappearance of Kyra’s brother, Danny (Dustin Milligan, 90210), a highshot programmer, but like the best known client of Sam Spade, there may be more to it than that. Fortunately, Falloon, while no detective, is actually fairly bright and when he’s not tripping over his tongue trying to sound like a detective to impress Kyra, he does catch on to what’s going on.
Director Carl Bessai (the Embrace of the Vampire remake) allows Butt’s humor to flow naturally within the style and pacing of a noir film. He uses lighting, editing and music to good effect (remember how I said earlier that No Clue feels like a black & white film?), then carefully undermines it all with Butt’s Everyman character in ways that range from subtle (Falloon’s favorite drink: root beer and rum) to obvious (‘This is Canada!’).
The only major flaw is that Smart is not nearly as sultry as the typical noir dame and Kristin Prout, playing a suspect’s daughter, is too much so (perhaps if they had played each other’s roles…).
The result is a loving and pleasing, if not quite brilliant send up of all things noir. Fans of Corner Gas will love it but fans of noir will probably appreciate its love of the genre more than the execution.
Final Grade: B
Photos courtesy of eOne