Entertainment
Lost in Las Vegas --- Two Canadians pretending in town that pretends

04/23/2001
The Toronto Star

The whole thing is summed up rather neatly by Blues Brother impersonator Kieron
Lafferty, as he and partner Wayne Catania the fake Jake to his ersatz Elwood
take their first, incredulous drive along the famously gaudy Las Vegas Strip.

These days, of course, it's become as much theme park as it was once a monument
to vice, "Disney World with a sinister edge," . . . an imitation pyramid and sphinx over
here, a recreated Roman coliseum over there, a virtual Venetian palazzo, a faux
Eiffel Tower, a scaled-down Statuette of Liberty . . .

"You know, it's perfect that we're in Vegas," Lafferty muses. "Here we are, two guys
from Canada, pretending we're two actors who used to play fictitious brothers in a
town where everything is a replica."

Just as Lafferty and Catania's Las Vegas odyssey turned out to be perfect material
for Paul Jay, the Toronto documentarian who turned Bret Hart's life in leather and
Spandex into the award-winning 1998 documentary Hitman Hart: Wrestling With
Shadows (and followed it up, at the family's request, with an A&E Biography of
Hart's brother, Owen, who died in the ring shortly thereafter).

Equal parts hilarious, heroic and heartfelt, Jay's latest documentary effort, Lost In
Las Vegas, debuts Sunday night at 9 on A & E.

"There are certain kinds of themes that I'm always exploring," explains Jay, "and this
had the same kind of layers that the wrestling film had, in terms of the pop culture,
plus the underlying social commentary issues Vegas is such a great metaphor for
where we all might be headed."

The inspiration came to him in, of all unlikely places, the dentist's chair.

"I don't know," he laughs. "I guess I was in enough pain to figure it was a good idea."

Leafing through a magazine, Jay came across an ad for the Toronto-based Legends
show, part of an international chain of all-impersonator cabarets that had set up
shop here (closing shortly thereafter) at the downtown Sheraton Hotel.

"I went down, and these two guys were there, and I found out they were from
Toronto . . . I thought they were really good, much better than most of the other
people in the show. And then they turned out to be articulate, and had a good sense
of humour.

"And they told me all about the 'big show' in Vegas, that they'd never played it . . .
the story was really already there, about them wanting to go down and make it big,
and their dilemma that the one place they might have a long-term gig, and be able to
live there with their families, is the one place that might be the worst to raise kids."

The pseudo siblings' surreal sojourn takes some surprising twists and turns along
the way u including a dream-sequence production number recreating a scene from
the original Blues Brothers movie.

"At that point, I had to consider, 'What form is this, anyway?' And I basically decided,
'Well, I don't really care. I'm just trying to make a movie here.' So there's a dream
sequence in this film. If you don't like it, get over it.

"I know docs don't have dream sequences. But this one does."

"I figured, once you're doing Vegas and the whole reality/fantasy thing, then, what
the hell, go with it."

And Jay has gone with it all the way to Hong Kong, from where he has just returned
after screening the film at a major festival.

Jay is also the producer of Newsworld's counterSpin, which he is looking forward to
bringing to the main network next season. In addition, he is starting to put together
again, with the family's cooperation u a feature film about Bret and Owen Hart.