“Anybody that causes a prison riot singing about whores and cats, that’s my guy!” quips Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade), in Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties: The Bubbles and The Shitrockers Story, a film with one of the most bloated movie titles to arrive in recent memory. The plot of this quirky comedy may not be as consistently amusing, but there’s still spunk in this offbeat tale about a frenzied Canadian band that finds themselves opening for Thornton’s band during a European tour.
To be sure, this film may work best for diehard fans of the hit Canadian TV show, Trailer Park Boys, and/or the real-life band featured in it, Bubbles and The Shitrockers. Still, if you’re a Borat fan and a lover of silly comedies or films about beleaguered bands, this film is for you. For others, it’s amusing enough and a good diversion for nearly two hours. Anyway you spin it, the underdog premise may win you over. Bubbles (Mike Smith) and his band, The Shitrockers, embark on their own tour around Nova Scotia when a viral Internet clip finds them on a European tour opening for Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters.
Mayhem ensues, of course. The cast also includes Robb Wells, JP Tremblay, Pat Roach, Martin Freeman (The Hobbit), and Robert Sheehan (The Umbrella Academy). Filled with hilarious gags and road trip / country bumpkin humor, it’s evident Smith, who penned the screenplay, and director Charlie Lightening have great passion for the story, which tends to overstay its welcome due to its lengthy runtime at nearly two hours.
Crooning and Cracking Jokes Only Go So Far
Trailer Park Boys began as a series. It rocked Canada, debuting in 2001 and ran through 2018. The show tracked nutty Nova Scotia trailer park residents Bubbles, Ricky (Wells), and Julian (Tremblay). Mad capers, get-rich-quick schemes, and a gaggle of screw-ups filtered into the mix. The series found the gang always hunted by a former trailer park supervisor, Jim, and his shirtless, pot-bellied assistant, Randy (Roach). The fellas are back in the film version, and the documentary being made about them gives the film a fun mockumentary journey.
After giving us a glimpse of who these offbeat but sweet oddballs are, we find them embarking on a tour of veterans halls, crooning shitrockin’ tunes — country-like ditties filled with sass and mostly about kitties, of course. The lyrics will spark a smile: “I found Vinci in a storm drain/Covered in liquor and glue/I took him home and cleaned him off with kitty shampoo…”
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And so it goes. Somewhere toward the tail end of their mini tour, which the fellas feel is so overwhelming with its 14 stints, a TikTok video goes viral, and suddenly they’re invited to be the opening act for Thornton’s entourage. The transition from roading it small-town-style to the European setting is smooth on screen.
There’s a memorable scene when Thornton is introduced by way of this comment to a groupie he’s reciting a story to: “[I said to him] if you don’t let go of that cobra, I swear on Christ Almighty’s f***ing nutsack, that that bag of magic apples is going in the mulcher.” That said, these gags are stellar. Bubbles once quips: “He wouldn’t know a good song if it crawled into his Hawaiian shirt and s*** in his mouth.”
Trailer Park Boys in Europe
To appreciate Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties, one must understand and perhaps embrace the dimwitted yet tender-hearted delight of Bubbles himself. At this point, the character is part of Mike Smith’s DNA, and his real-life musical act has become a great sensation, capturing international attention. This story works well when it leans into Bubbles’ fish-out-of-water experience. That would be experiencing Europe or engaging with Billy Bob Thornton.
The film also benefits from cutting back and forth from a nutty experience or musical interlude to answering questions from the documentarian. “What is s***-rocking exactly,” the man asks. “What style of music would you consider it to be?” To which Bubbles says: “It’s not so much a style of music, as it is an attitude.”
That attitude is on full display when the band sings. It tends to fall a bit flatter when the music stops. This could have been remedied by trimming the runtime of the film. There’s a running gag, too, in the film. It seems Bubbles accidentally swallowed a pin while knitting and now has a perforated rectum. Other gags — from the mention of revenge banging a priest to taking in a special needs kitten called Cat Benatar — keep us amused, too. Of course, the well-known character shirtless Randy (allergic to fabric if he wears it from the waist up) is consistent throughout.
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As most oddball comedies would have it, there are some hiccups along the way, and like many hit-and-miss comedies, it’s more misses than hits. But all that manages to work itself out on the big tour. Suddenly, Billy Bob Thornton is doling out advice to Bubbles, telling him to follow his heart and maintain his integrity. Look for cameos by legends like Ronnie Wood, Duff McKagan, Lennon Stella, Rick Nielsen, and Eric Burdon, and there’s something to be said about the fine production quality of the musical footage.
The story itself may wander and things may get cleaned up a bit too easily by the end, but for a modern-day shitrocker fairy tale, this film manages to find the right beats and hit some high notes, Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties, The Bubbles and The Shitrockers Story opens December 6.
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