Little Lorraine (2025) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for coffins
Take a Drink: whenever Uncle Hughie chews up some scenery
Take a Drink: whenever economic anxieties surface
Take a Drink: for vintage TV programs
Take a Drink: for coffee, good or bad
Do a Shot: “lobster season doesn’t last forever”
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
When one thinks drug-smuggling across borders, thoughts tend to stray towards Mexico, but from Prohibition and assuredly before, the Canadian/U.S. border has proven no less a nexus for crime.
Little Lorraine is a film set in the titular Cape Breton town in the 1980s, where a coal mine disaster has decimated the already limited options for work. Stephen Amell stars as a miner who takes his shady uncle’s offer to work on his lobster boat, only to learn there’s more lucrative cargo than crustaceans in his sights.
A Toast
This film begins as a fascinating tour of a quite unique coal mine- one that runs underneath the sea, at least until a disaster modeled off of a real one in 1986 strikes. Even before this, it’s clear this colorful Cape Breton town, full of folk music and salt-of-the-earth folk, is dying.
When Stephen McHattie’s gaunt visage first appears, you know he’s not here offering any form of salvation. The only question is whether he’s forestalling or hastening on inevitable damnation. McHattie’s haggard yet dapper figure, suitably ominous, commands most every scene he’s in, but there’s a full suite of interesting character actors to play off of as well. A special shout-out to Rhys Darby as a flashy drug smuggler- yes, please.
While much of the film is much what you think it’ll be, it makes a surprising and ballsy narrative choice three quarters of the way through, and then again towards the end, that shake things up intriguingly. The film really finds its footing in many ways just as it’s ending.
Beer Two
The setting is unique, but the plotline and key conflicts aren’t especially, at least for most of the film. The sound mix and accents take a bit of getting used to in the beginning as well.
Beer Three
This relatively low-profile Canadian production is a curious film for J. Balvin to choose to debut in, especially playing an Interpol agent (against expectations when there are Colombian drug trader roles in the offing, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing).
He’s fine, although there are the growing pains to be expected for a first time out, as there in are some of the other performances. It’s an uneven mix at times.
Verdict
Little Lorraine is a 1980s-set crime film in a unique locale, which also isn’t afraid to zag just when you think it’s all zig.
