Shooting for a hat trick

>> Director Louis Saia on the eagerly anticipated Les Boys 3

by MATTHEW HAYS

"It is natural to be nervous, isn't it?" film director Louis Saia asks. Of course, he's absolutely right. Settling into a chair in Melenny Film Production office in Outremont, Saia is reflecting on the opening of Les Boys 3, the third installment in the immensely popular phenom, undoubtedly the most successful film franchise in Canadian history.

And the film has a lot of expectations to live up to. The first film, a likable, self-consciously goofy '97 romp about the ties that bind an amateur hockey league together, proved an unprecedented success, raking in over $6-million, second only to the mighty Titanic in that year's box-office sweepstakes. The second, released in '99, didn't tamper too much with the formula, taking our rogue hockey team over to France, where--not surprisingly--they didn't always fit in. Quebec audiences again voted with their feet, buying almost as many tickets, making Les Boys 2 that extreme rarity on the Canadian (or Quebec) film landscape: a successful sequel.

Saia says he hopes the third entry will be a success. But that almost seems a fait accompli, seeing as people are already asking Saia and Les Boys creator and producer Richard Goudreau what the plot of Les Boys 4 will be (a film they haven't even decided if they're going to make). For Saia, the Les Boys mystique isn't very mysterious at all. "Quebeckers are so passionate about hockey," he says, while acknowledging that he can't skate himself. "There's a feeling of crossing over lines with the films, too. You have a player on social security, a doctor, a lawyer--the lowest class to the highest class. They're brought together because of their shared passion for the game."

Laurels and darts

The Les Boys successes have not been entirely rosy, however. A rather loud faction of the Quebec press has emerged, deriding the Les Boys series, posing the question: what's worse, the actual films themselves or the fact that so many Quebeckers are flocking to see them? Both La Presse's Nathalie Petrowski and Le Devoir's Odile Tremblay have notoriously trashed the films, lamenting the fact that so many Quebeckers are lining up to see themselves represented as beer-soaked, sexist boors. Wrote Petrowski in a now-famous diatribe against the films: "One can only dream of a day when Quebeckers will wish to see themselves portrayed in a different light on screen." (The critical tide hasn't abated this time around: Le Devoir film critic Martin Bilodeau recently told me he hasn't bothered to see any of the Les Boys films, something that isn't going to change now, dismissing them as crass efforts to emulate Hollywood product.)

For Saia, this cultural debate is a sad sign of the province's colonial past. "I don't understand hitting the films, though I don't really mind now that they're so successful," he says. "In Quebec, the attitude has been that we're born to lose. Stay low, stay small. We're not out to simply make money with these films, but we are out to get people into the cinemas. We wanted to find a way to reach the people. Even Andy Warhol got people into the galleries. Even Bertolt Brecht--he wasn't just making theories, he was writing plays, and his theatres were always full."

Fairly highfalutin references for someone who's just directed his third film in a series that includes gags about confusion over beer brands and flatulence, but Saia's roots are in Quebec theatre, where he wrote successful works throughout the '80s. Next, Saia says he would like to take a break from hockey and focus on a gangster film, in the style of Guy Ritchie. But don't fret, the show continues: producer Goudreau is currently developing an English-language version of Les Boys for the American market, with football replacing hockey (the sport has got to match the market, Goudreau has reasoned).

And, after seemingly exhausting the plot possibilities for their affable, motley gaggle of hockey enthusiasts, what are the chances of a Les Boys 4? Saia and Goudreau concur: never say never.

Les Boys 3 opens Friday, Nov. 30