David Bouchard is a plainclothes detective in Montreal. Martin Ward is a plainclothes detective in Toronto. When a corpse is found literally straddling the border between English and French Canada, between Ontario and Quebec, both officers are called to the scene and have to work together to solve the murder case.
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Although they share the same profession and work on the same case, the two couldn't be less similar. Bouchard is a French-speaking,cigarette-smoking, not-so-law-abiding cop, while Ward is an Anglophone who works strictly according to the letter of the law. The two can communicate - each speaks the other's language, and the film alternates between English and French. But they understand little of the other's culture or environment.
Ward heads first to Montreal, where he and Bouchard learn of a hockey-obsessed murderer of lawyers involved in selling a Canadian hockey franchise to the United States. They discover an abandoned house outside Montreal, presumably the killer's hiding place, where stylized hockey
masks, tattoo equipment (which the killer uses to "brand" his victims) and a dentist's chair are hidden. One of the cops trips an alarm, which sends the house up in flames, and all of their evidence with it. While Bouchard and Ward exit, relatively unharmed, they lose track of this valuable lead. They head to the local tavern to find out more about the house and the killer, and end up in a classic barroom brawl, where each has to fight for the other. Later, Ward goes home with Bouchard, where they share dinner with Bouchard's family and Ward learns more about Bouchard and Montreal family life.
New leads take the cops to Toronto, where it is Bouchard's turn to be immersed in a "foreign" culture. Bouchard stays at Ward's house and has a romantic liaison with Ward's sister. Together, the cops get closer to the criminal, who is ensconced in an abandoned warehouse at the Port of Montreal. The sly killer is able to seriously wound Bouchard and Ward, and tries to escape, but is caught. Bouchard and Ward have successfully bridged the country's two solitudes while saving that quintessentially Canadian sport: hockey.
The review of this Movie prepared by Jan Arata