At the heart of Colin Hanks’ moving documentary John Candy: I Like Me lies an emotion few films about celebrities dare to convey: pure honesty.
The film opens with a perfect bit of irony when Bill Murray jokes about Hanks finding someone who might say something bad about Candy. It is both humorous and impossible, as everyone who knew John Candy seems to share the same sentiment: he was simply good.
Hanks frames Candy’s story not as a distant Hollywood remembrance but as an intimate portrayal of the man behind the legend. The documentary uses his funeral as a grounding point, moving gracefully between present recollections and past memories.
Through talk show segments, behind-the-scenes clips, and rare interviews, we watch as pieces of Candy’s life come together like moments in a family scrapbook. He was not only a beloved comedian but also a father, husband, and man whose vulnerability was hidden behind laughter.
The film’s emotional rhythm grows from those who loved him most, his children, Chris and Jennifer, and his wife, Rosemary. Their reflections remind the viewer that, beyond the lights and laughter, Candy was a man whose warmth filled every space he entered.
He treated his craft and those around him with sincerity, a quality as rare as it was disarming in a business often more concerned with image than humanity.
A Talent Too Good for Hollywood’s Cruel Demands
Dan Aykroyd’s description of his best friend as a “grand man” captures the essence of Candy’s presence both on and off screen. He was large not only in body but also in spirit. Yet, that very physicality, the broad frame that Hollywood often turned into the punchline of jokes, was a constant battle for him.
Candy lost his father to heart failure when he was just five years old, an event that left a lifelong mark. His family history shadowed every success he earned. Behind the laughter, Candy carried the silent fear that his weight and stress could lead him down a similar path.
His son Chris’ heartbreaking reflection, “His mind was overloaded,” echoes the struggle he carried daily, a burden intensified by an industry that rarely showed compassion.
Rosemary’s recollection is particularly painful. She shares how Candy’s early attempts to lose weight were actively discouraged by studio executives and managers.
Hollywood wanted the funny, lovable “big guy,” not the healthier or happier version of the man himself. The same system that made him a household name also turned his body and insecurities into content for cheap laughter.
It is here that Hanks’ direction strikes at the truth of fame: the irony of being adored publicly while fighting private pain. Candy was a man whose compassion and humor made others feel lighter, even as he carried more than his share of emotional weight.
The Art of Being John Candy
While I Like Me deals with loss and fragility, it never settles into sadness. Hanks ensures that Candy is remembered not for his death but for his vibrant life and artistry.
Through his iconic performances in Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, and Splash, Candy displayed a range that went far beyond slapstick comedy. He mastered sincerity just as easily as comedy, turning humor into connection rather than ridicule.
John Candy: I Like Me (Credit: Prime Video)
His time with SCTV revealed a performer who understood people, not just punchlines. Alongside comic legends like Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, and Gilda Radner, Candy helped shape a uniquely Canadian brand of humor grounded in warmth and humanity. His characters are eccentric, flawed, yet deeply kind, reflecting him.
Perhaps the defining moment of his film career arrives in Planes, Trains & Automobiles during an emotional exchange with Steve Martin. After enduring a merciless rant from Martin’s character, Candy’s Del Griffith quietly says, “I like me.”
That line becomes the soul of Hanks’ documentary. It is simple honesty at its most powerful, an unexpectedly profound defense of self-acceptance in a world that made it hard for Candy to love himself fully.
Candy believed that laughter could bridge emotional distance. He performed not to dominate the stage but to connect. Every grin, every tear, every slight tilt of his head carried sincerity.
Audiences saw in him not a movie star but a reflection of people they loved: an uncle, a father, a friend who always found something to smile about.
A Legacy Woven Through Love and Laughter
Hanks, along with editors Shane Reid and Darrin Roberts, crafts a deeply textured portrait of influence. The film threads together dozens of voices, actors, writers, and collaborators, each describing Candy’s profound impact. It is a reminder that legacy is not measured by awards or fame but by how deeply one touches others.
Candy’s short life produced an extraordinary career. In less than two decades, he built a body of work still quoted, studied, and celebrated. His humor was never cruel or sarcastic; it was grounded in decency. Even as he endured pressure, exhaustion, and health concerns, Candy remained a symbol of goodness.
His colleagues describe him as the person who always had time to listen, to comfort, and to laugh at himself gently when others might have grown bitter.
The documentary moves beyond nostalgia. It feels like a letter from those who adored him to the man they continue to miss. Every frame is filled with affection and a quiet sadness for what might have been. Yet, there’s also peace in knowing that Candy’s work endures as evidence of who he truly was.
For his children, I Like Me becomes more than a film; it is a record of love and honesty. It shows how their father’s legacy goes beyond the roles he played. He embodied kindness in every aspect of life. His humor came not from making others feel small but from lifting them up.
Remembering the Grand Man
John Candy: I Like Me closes not with sorrow but gratitude. It honors the laughter he gave, the warmth he shared, and the humanity he represented. Hanks avoids unnecessary dramatics, letting the people who knew Candy best do the storytelling. The result feels deeply personal, an embrace through time.
There is a lingering image of Candy that the documentary leaves behind: a man surrounded by loved ones, smiling because he knows he made people happy.
That smile tells his story better than any biography could. Though his career ended far too early, his memory continues to inspire generations of performers who strive to be both funny and kind.
The greatest measure of John Candy’s life is not found in fame, but in the affection that still fills conversations about him. His spirit lives on in the moments of laughter that bring people together, in the warmth shared among friends, and in the comfort of knowing someone like him once walked among us.
The film’s message, embodied by Candy’s simple yet enduring line “I like me,” serves as a gentle reminder for all: to love oneself, to forgive one’s flaws, and to appreciate the beauty of kindness.
Colin Hanks’ documentary does more than remember a legend; it reminds us that humor, when anchored in empathy, can be the most powerful expression of love.
Beast of War hurls its audience straight into chaos, fusing World War II wartime survival with primal terror from the deep. Set predominantly on the open sea, it’s an apocalyptic test of endurance where the battlefield becomes a splintered raft adrift in shark-infested waters.
This Australian survival horror asks one central question: when stripped of order and resources, who do we become?
Director Kiah Roache-Turner, best known for his energetic genre style, paints a world that feels brutal, claustrophobic, and hostile. The story opens at a military training camp where camaraderie barely exists.
Among the recruits is Leo, played by Mark Coles Smith, an Aboriginal soldier whose bravery and intelligence clash cruelly with the racism of his peers. The first act sets up hierarchies of class, of race, of brute strength that are destined to collapse once the men are cast into the vast, merciless ocean.
When the ship carrying these soldiers is bombed in a sudden Japanese aerial attack, chaos floods the screen. Smoke, fire, and scraps of wreckage fill the waters. Leo saves a fellow soldier, Will (Joel Nankervis), for the second time, and the two crawl onto what remains of their vessel, joined by a handful of survivors.
Their situation turns dire: no food, no clean water, and no land in sight. And then comes the film’s biggest predator a shark, massive and unrelenting, circling their fragile floating prison.
Fear, Prejudice, and Power on the Open Sea
Confinement turns these stranded survivors into reflections of a doomed micro-society. Just as they begin adjusting to survival, deep-rooted hatred and fear surface.
Resident bigot Teddy (Lee Tiger Halley) adds another layer of tension, targeting Leo not only because of prejudice but also because desperation amplifies cruelty. Hunger, thirst, and panic tear apart whatever fragments of discipline the soldiers had left.
Roache-Turner uses this desperate environment to ask brutal moral questions. When resources vanish, would humanity still choose compassion, or does survival instinct erase all decency?
The film’s power lies not only in the shark’s presence but in how quickly men become their own worst predators. The constant threat in Beast of War isn’t always underwater; it’s psychological and racial, embedded within the survivors themselves.
This underlying theme gives the movie sharp resonance. Modern audiences, facing a world teeming with scarcity and chaos, will recognize the metaphor: civilization is fragile; order is an illusion. When stripped bare, people’s true nature surfaces, uglier than any shark attack could ever be.
Beast of War (Credit: Prime Video)
Stylistically, Beast of War thrives on tension. Roache-Turner’s direction, though clearly limited by budget, uses camera proximity and tight framing to convey suffocating dread.
Every plank on the raft creaks with danger, every ripple suggests something monstrous below. When the shark finally lunges, it’s not just a creature-feature moment it’s nature reclaiming dominance over human arrogance.
Yet the film never fully aligns its tones. It straddles pulpy horror and earnest human drama. The result is a movie fascinating in theme but uneven in rhythm. It wants to terrify while also philosophizing, and those two ambitions constantly collide.
A Monster of Metaphor and Flesh
The movie’s central threat A colossal shark, is less an animal and more a manifestation of collective fear. Leo’s recurring nightmare about losing someone to a shark earlier in life points to a deeper trauma.
It’s not just the sea he dreads, but what it represents: endlessness, guilt, loss, and the futility of control. Each time the shark appears, it mirrors the men’s crumbling unity and internal hatred.
Roache-Turner injects flashes of color and dreamlike editing during these nightmare scenes, showing his distinctive style through vibrant hues that contrast the film’s otherwise grim palette. These sequences transform what could have been a standard B-movie monster flick into something artistically ambitious, even if uneven at times.
As days pass, hunger gnaws at reason. One can of peaches becomes a symbol of both hope and selfishness. Fights erupt over scraps, and alliances shift like tides.
Leo’s courage contrasts sharply with his comrades’ growing savagery. What remains of their command structure begins to collapse, revealing that even soldiers trained for war are helpless when isolated from leadership, comfort, and purpose. Humanity itself begins to rot under the weight of fear.
The shark is relentless but mechanical; it attacks, retreats, and returns. The real horror comes from watching the survivors’ transformation. They become primal echoes of themselves, stripped down to the raw truth Roache-Turner seems intent to expose: nature doesn’t haunt humanity; humanity consumes itself.
Strengths, Weaknesses, and the Point of No Return
Beast of War is both elevated and constrained by its setting. The confined space builds intensity but limits creativity. The filmmakers extract tension from minimal movement, but this soon becomes visual fatigue. The audience, like the characters, begins to feel trapped.
These limitations raise an important point about Roache-Turner’s resourcefulness: he does a lot with little, but the “little” eventually feels too obvious to ignore.
The production’s shoestring budget is apparent throughout. Special effects are occasionally rough, and the shark sequences, though tense, lack polish.
Still, Roache-Turner’s commitment to tone keeps the film afloat. He crafts several outstanding moments, such as slow, suspenseful underwater shots where the camera lingers on empty blue nothingness before the inevitable strike.
What keeps the movie from soaring, however, is pacing. It begins with promise, loses momentum midway, and regains some life near its bloody climax.
Viewers might admire its effort but wish it had more bite, both literally and narratively. The tension doesn’t always maintain its grip, and the film’s philosophical undertone overshadows its visceral potential.
That said, Roache-Turner delivers something meaningful beneath the pulp. The shark, the sea, and the splintering raft become metaphors for a broken world where people must decide whether to unite or perish isolated. It’s a haunting, if heavy-handed, reflection of society’s current fragility.
The Bleak Beauty of Hopeless Survival
When the credits roll, Beast of War leaves a taste of salt, blood, and bitter reflection. Its final scenes, where nature fully reclaims control, suggest a cycle that humans cannot win. We create war, devour each other, and still act surprised when something larger takes its turn against us.
Roache-Turner reminds us that survival isn’t just physical, it’s ethical and emotional. How people treat one another when the world stops caring reveals everything worth knowing about them.
Leo’s endurance becomes symbolic; despite hate and hunger, he persists with quiet strength. His presence gives the film its moral heartbeat, proving that decency can survive even the deepest waters of cruelty.
Beast of War is not flawless. It’s rough, uneven, and constrained. Yet within its imperfections lies a striking mirror held up to our own age of scarcity and mistrust. The question isn’t how we face monsters but whether we recognize the ones among us.
