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First Round Down is a second-rate Grosse Pointe Blank

FIRST ROUND DOWN (Brett Butler, Jason Butler). 96 minutes. Opens Friday (May 5). See listing. Rating: NN


Brett and Jason Butler have been making movies for a few years now, and they know what they like: tough guys standing around peacocking and insulting each other, and occasionally landing a joke.

In their 2013 drama Mourning Has Broken, they found a frame that worked, positioning the grandiose takedowns as the unfocused rage of a man who’d just lost his wife. But while First Round Down has them working with a bigger budget and a wider range of talent than previous projects allowed, this one feels like backsliding.

Orphan Black’s Dylan Bruce plays Tim Tucker, a former hockey hero who’s come home to Hamilton to deliver pizzas and take care of his maladjusted younger brother (Percy Hynes White). Oh, and he still pines for his ex, Kelly (Rachel Wilson), and also spent a few years as a mob hit man, two factors that come into play when he’s ­ordered to do one last hit. 

Yep, the Butlers are blatantly ripping off Grosse Pointe Blank, but without the character development or ironic self-awareness that distinguished George Armitage’s 1997 genre-bender. They’ve just borrowed the conceit and rewritten it in their own image, which means there are a lot of scenes where characters yell at each other for long stretches of time before someone backs away in humiliation. Over and over again.

The financial participation of Telefilm Canada allows the Butlers to level up in terms of actors and crew, so there’s that. Bruce, who never got to show his full range as Orphan Black’s duplicitous Paul, makes the most of his leading man role, and Wilson has some fun with Kelly’s conflicting agendas during a climactic hockey game heist. 

But to appreciate them, you have to look past everything that doesn’t work about First Round Down. I wish I could say it’s worth the trouble.

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