Canadian Bacon (1995) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

This is a pretty good little cult comedy, actually made in 1993, which provided much inspiration for the two later films referenced above.

Alan Alda plays a President of the USA who is struggling to keep his approval ratings afloat in a sea of economic troubles after perestroika. With the world engaged in neither hot nor cold war, arms manufacturers and related industries are laying off people right and left. With the economy tumbling, the President needs a hook to get re-elected. 

It seems that there is one chance - restart the cold war, put people back to work, and get people rallying behind the president against a known enemy. The President invites the Russian Prime Minister to a summit dinner to discuss it, but Russia has too many internal problems to afford war machinery. In fact, The Russians ask for a doggie bag to take the leftovers back with them - and it's KFC "winging" back to Moscow.

After considering the general absence of real, live enemies in the world, the president's advisors decide that they can create the scariest possible scenario by drumming up a cold war with Canada. Look at the facts - 

• they can easily spy in America, because they look the same as Americans ("Trebek. Shatner. They walk among us.")
• they are right on the border, not far overseas
• they hold a big edge over the USA in the all-important Zamboni technology
• they have a marijuana leaf on their flag

Unfortunately, John Candy and Rhea Perlman, as cops in Niagara Falls, New York, get a bit carried away with the non-existent Canadian threat, and decide to attack immediately with the one thing the Canucks fear most - litter. You know how clean their cities are. So Candy carries a few bags of garbage across to Ontario, sprinkles it around, one thing leads to another, and Perlman is taken prisoner in Canada, which doesn't realize they are at war.

The film was written and directed by Michael Moore, the guy who is the nemesis of America's military-industrial complex because of his embarrassing in-your-face documentaries ("Roger and Me", e.g.).  

Of course, he was satirizing America's Gulf War adventure mentality, which not only got President Bush's approval rating up into the 90's, but which ultimately got Bill Clinton in office. (Bush's popularity was so strong that the significant Democrats were scared to enter the race, for fear they would be crushed, and end their careers ala Dukakis. Clinton, as the obscure, $35,000 a year governor of Arkansas, had nothing to lose. Bush's polls turned south, Clinton proved to be a skillful pol, and Clinton snuck into the back door of the White House.)

It really could have been a great movie with a bit more work and an experienced director. Some of it is hilarious,  the premise is both accurate and funny, and it features some good performances from Rip Torn, Alan Alda, and Candy. Unfortunately, the basic plot with Candy is spoiled by a crazy sub-plot with some insane arms manufacturers, unscrupulous Presidential advisors who are beholden to the arms industry, and more unfunny crap about a real plot to blackmail the world by launching nuclear missiles from a control station atop the CN tower, all of which should have been cut completely from the script. What did they need it for? They already had a great idea.

It's a shame. It could have been an absolutely brilliant satire of the American "poll mentality", and the quaint mental picture that Americans have of Canada. Instead, it's only a sporadically funny film with some inspired moments and some totally sophomoric crap.