DANNY (Justin Simms, William D. McGillvray. Canada). 84 minutes. Rating: NNN
NFB docs always look terrific, but with a few exceptions – Pink Ribbons, Inc., for example – they tend to be terribly conventional in structure and format. Danny fits the mould.
The story’s great. Well-known lawyer Danny Williams, a protagonist in the Mount Cashel abuse case, leaves his practice to seek the leadership of Newfoundland’s PC party. By standing up to Ottawa – Prime Minster Harper in particular – as premier, he turns his loser, have-not province into a confident, financially viable power.
Williams is a charismatic subject, and so’s his even more riveting mother, but the film plods along chronologically and can’t find a way to build any tension.
