They chew up and cruelly spit out the majority of our precious, limited hours on earth and are a continual source of stress, anxiety, and tiresome bickering around water-coolers and coffee machines the world over.
Yes, many of us loathe our jobs --- until we lose them.
Then it's a whole new story. We panic at the thought of financial instability, loss of purpose, and even more devastating, loss of identity.
Themes of such magnitude are addressed with inappropriate doses of levity in
Hank and Mike, a caustic Canadian comedy about two blue-collar Easter bunnies, played by Thomas Michael (Hank) and Paulo Mancini (Mike) who are laid off by a cost-cutting corporation hell bent on the bottom line.
What results is a hilarious, often crass downward spiral of sagging self-esteem that leads Hank and Mike to varying degrees of self-destructive debauchery. Along the way their friendship is tested --- as is their patience --- after taking on a series of ill-suited menial jobs, none of which fills the bunny void.
Michael and Mancini, who wrote the script together, are well aware that the idea of two Easter bunnies being laid off may strike some as a ridiculous scenario, but they maintain that the movie, which also stars Chris Klein and Joe Mantegna, is rooted in a reality that many can identify with.
"It's a film really about friendship and two guys who lose their job and try to figure out what to do with their lives, and they just happen to be Easter bunnies...so really this is a movie about friendship and about losing your job, which I think a lot of people can relate to today," stressed Michael in his bright pink bunny costume.
"That's all they know --- is being Easter bunnies," interjects Mancini. "So when that is stripped away they are completely lost, one delves into alcohol abuse and crazy partying and the other bunny...gets really depressed and they're lost, but in the end they realize there's more to them, they have that friendship and because of that friendship they make that realization."
They also came to the realization that filming and promoting a movie in bulky bunny suits comes with its own set of unique challenges.
"We knew what we were getting into, we created this thing, we have no one to blame but ourselves, we wrote it!" jokes Michael. "When we've been working for how many days in the bunny suits, who do you get angry at?"
"We also said from the get-go when we were making this movie that we would whore ourselves constantly at the end of it in the bunny suits to get the film seen and that's what we're doing now."
To research the film both actors ventured out into the world in their costumes to gauge the public's reaction. Michael, who plays the more boisterous bunny, put his neck on the line to ascertain whether or not a man sporting pink floppy ears could be taken seriously.
"I used to try to pick fights in the club district dressed like this and no matter what I would say to anybody, I would try to pick up their girlfriends and tell them to shut up, they would like look at me and start laughing. We have a lot of power," he said with Hank's omnipresent cigarette dangling from his mouth. "No one will fight you when you're an Easter bunny."
Despite all the fun that went into writing, researching, and making the film, the duo is serious about the project and hope movie-goers can look past the surface silliness to get to the heart of the film. At the same time they eschew the preaching that penetrates too many modern comedies.
"I think we definitely didn't want to just make a goofy comedy," Michael adds. "We always wanted to try to set out and have a bit of a message and it's that you are more than what you do for a living, and if that's all you identify yourself with then you don't have much left."
Hank And Mike opens Friday March 27, for limited engagements at AMC Yonge and Dundas.
michaelt@citytv.com
