Virginia's Run (In With the Trailer Park Boys)

Here we go again! I watched a movie just to find the Trailer Park Boys connection. This time I watched Virginia's Run, which had been on my radar for quite some time. This movie doesn't focus around any of the actors from TPB, but rather a little girl, named Virginia, whose mother died in some horse related accident. The father, being so angry at the horse that killed his wife, has sold the horse, but Virginia still tends to it. The horse bites the dust while giving birth, so the foal imprints on Virginia as its mother. From here we have your typical, cookie cutter early 2000s coming of age movie. Father and daughter disagree, father makes a huge (and financially irresponsible) gesture to apologize to his daughter, and now magically has complete and total faith in adolescent daughter's decision making skills, after having spent the first part of the movie questioning them.

I know this movie isn't aimed at me, so I won't judge it too harshly. I'm not into horses, nor could my family ever afford one, so two strikes right there, but that's on me. Much like with Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor I hope the target audience find their solace in this film as well. After the huge apology gesture from her father, Virginia enters into a horse race, but not before she has an interaction with the town bully, a rich kid, whom Virginia and her horse completely smoke in an unsanctioned race. As revenge for this, and to avoid losing in front of the whole town, the rich kid horsenaps the horse, causing Virginia to be late to the race.

This is where all four of the Trailer Park Boys actors meet up. In the first few minutes Mr. Jeremy Akerman appears, and later comes back as the overseer of the horse race. While recovering her horsenapped horse, Virginia runs past a traffic stop, where none other than John Dunsworth is portraying the sheriff. Once Virginia is escorted into town, by Sheriff Jim Lahey (not really the character's name), she is held back from entering the race by Mr. Akerman's character, who is a DICK! Which causes a pair of men in the crowd (credited as JP and Rob, aka Julian and Ricky) to chant "Let Virginia ride!", repeatedly.

This is where all four of them interact, before Akerman's character finally relents and allows Virginia to enter the race. The scene switches to Virginia who is now mounted up and in hot pursuit to catch up to the race, even though she's like fifteen minutes behind. Do not fear though, as this is a feel good, coming of age movie it only takes a few minutes before she's battling for the win. This leads to a side by side battle between Virginia and her rival, which results in him pulling some typical rival bully tricks and causing Virginia to take a tumble. In true feel good movie fashion she recovers and within a few more short minutes they're both battling it out to the finish line.

Sheriff Jim Lahey!

My only real complaints about this movie are the jaw harp that had to be used for almost any reason at all. Does it need more cow bell? No! It needs more jaw harp! And Gabriel Byrne did a pretty abysmal job with his accent. His acting was good, but his accent wasn't sure if it wanted to be his native Irish, or hillbilly American. As for the Trailer Park Boys connection, Mr. Akerman, JP and Robb were all featured pretty heavily throughout the final part. As for Sheriff Jim Lahey, well he was there at the end, but didn't say much else. Now shit hawks here, folks!

Freedom 35?