It’s sad to see movies go downhill. You know what I mean, the ones that start off with great promise and then end badly. Some take their time to show their true colours while others take a while but one thing’s for sure, it’s always disappointing to see it happen. It’s even more disappointing when the movie in question starts off as well as Puck Hogs.

Warren P. Sonoda’s mockumentary about a recreational hockey team on their last legs starts off with a bang. It’s funny, it’s smart, it’s a bit crude and reminiscent of the often dumb, dry and sometimes genius comedy that has made “The Trailer Park Boys” such a huge success, but once the film moves past the opening ten minutes, it quickly devolves from funny to amusing to downright painful. It was a great relief to finally see Gyan, the “filmmaker”, return to make his final statements on hockey.

I’d love to say that the film features some redeaming qualities be it great performances (sadly, outside of Daniel Kash as the Russian goalkeeper Sergei no one is particularly memorable) or great music (most of it seems badly out of place) or production design (it’s painfully clear there was little money to work with) but I could find little worth praising. I should have walked away partway through when I completely lost interest but I mustered through, mostly hoping that it would get better but it never did.

Overall, Puck Hogs is a sad little film, one that suggests a budding filmmaker but which feels more like a student film than the product of a filmmaker with as much experience and talent as Sonoda. A huge disappointment.

See VIFF screening schedule for show times.