I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM

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I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM
aka A Man in Uniform
Dir. David Wellington, 1993
Canada, 97 min.

FRIDAY, MARCH 6 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 17 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 26 – 7:30 PM

Some ideas deserve more than one film, and more than one author​. T​hey​ deserve some time to ​​knock around the cinema​tic zeitgeist​ awhile in work that is not so much derivative as conversational.​ In this Canadian film from 1993, Tom McCamus plays Henry Addler, a bank clerk trying to make it as a full time actor​ while caring for his ailing father​. Henry has just landed a reoccurring role on a TV police drama. To get into the part he takes his police uniform home and begins to walk the streets of Toronto looking for real life at its worst – and the goodness that only authority can sustain. Eventually, he also acquires a gun. I LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM makes no secret of its debt to TAXI DRIVER​. The similarities to the latter film marks one of many self-referentially cinematic elements. The emotional core of the film remains hidden just beneath the surface of a series of film tropes, common imagery, and stock characters. It’s a deeply personal and unique film, but every step of the way it struggles with cliche like an actor might struggle to give something real to a bit part. This is exactly the point, this is a film about pain that’s so hard to explain because it’s been explained so many times before, and about the roles common tragedies force us to play.