Vancouver writer-director Bruce Sweeney is heading back to September’s Toronto International Film Festival for the premiere of his latest feature, The Crimes of Mike Recket.
The new movie, described as a “neo-noir police procedural, set against the backdrop of economic hard times,” was announced Wednesday as part of TIFF’s Canadian film picks, and stars Nicholas Lea as a failing real estate agent who is attracting more cops than clients.
Co-star Gabrielle Rose talked to me earlier this year about the movie: “We worked on it for a year and a half. I think it’s going to be quite fabulous, we certainly had a marvelous time filming it.
“Nick charms his way into my life. I’m an older widowed woman of means. It’s kind of a thriller.”
The cast also includes past Sweeney collaborators Agam Darshi and Paul Skrudland. They filmed fast and cheap, when schedules allowed.
“I only worked with Nick and two dogs,” says Rose. “We started filming over a year ago, but things happened, Nick got other jobs, I got a job. Every so often Bruce would e-mail me, going ‘Are you ready this weekend?’”
Sweeney, Rose and Lea last worked together on 2009’s golf and sex comedy Excited, and before that Lea co-starred with Rebecca De Mornay in Sweeney’s 2007 drama American Venus. Both of those films debuted at the Toronto festival as well.
