Tickle Head, a harbour in Newfoundland, has 125 souls who live mostly off welfare cheques now that the cod is gone. After his wife and even the mayor leave for work in St John's, Murray (Brendan Gleeson) thinks up a grand scheme to seduce a doctor to come live in the village. An oil company is looking to build a high-tech plant in the area, but one of the requirements is that the town have a doctor. To get the plant, they also have to get more people and get the cash together for a bribe.
They force young Paul Lewis (Taylor Kitsch) to come to the village and then try their hardest to please him so that he'll stay. However, it turns out the doctor is into jazz and cricket, cannot fish at all, and has a fiancée back home. Will their plan work?
This movie worked for me for a number of reasons. Gleeson holds the movie together with a superb performance. The scenery (filmed in Trinity) is gorgeous. The same could be said for Taylor Kitsch, who exudes magnetism and amiability in every scene. He can obviously act but I suspect he was just playing himself in this movie.
Inevitably much of the gentle and sometimes ribald humour revolves around the eccentric characteristics of the rural villagers. I don't know how accurate the bumbling Newfie hick thing is, but Gordon Pinsent and the rest played it to the hilt.
The movie went too far a few times but regardless I enjoyed it. It's worth about 7.5 but I'll round it up. It's nice to see a non-Hollywood movie like this for a change.
