Michael Moore's detractors were no doubt pleased to see him fall on his face with his first narrative feature, a slapsticky working-class comedy shot through with half-formed leftist rants about corporate greed, international relations, and bad beer. Something like Dr. Strangelove crossed with Strange Brew, Canadian Bacon is a great idea on paper that plods on the screen. The problem is in Moore's direction: Though smart enough to surround himself with seasoned pros -- including cinematographer Haskell Wexler and composer Elmer Bernstein -- it's clear that the guerilla documentarian has no skill with actors. John Candy provides a warm but befuddled turn as the director's ostensible stand-in, and such capable actors as Alan Alda, Rip Torn, and Rhea Perlman seem adrift, under- or over-performing in their respective supporting roles. (One exception: a hilarious cameo turn from Dan Aykroyd as an anal-retentive Canadian highway patrolman.) It's obvious that with Canadian Bacon, Moore is striving to create a comedy that gets his message across to the proletariat, but by slapping together a film that veers between the super-broad and the hyper-topical, he ends up alienating just about everyone.
