Maybe you've never really understood how those Easter baskets get
filled every year. You see, Easter Inc. is a division of an important
holiday conglomerate, and they employ bunnies throughout the world, each
of whom has a route in every Christian land. It's a lot like UPS, except
they only work one day a year. As you can imagine, this is not a very
profitable enterprise. First of all, the company pays a bunch of bunnies
enough to live on all year, even though they only work that one night.
Second, the production staff spends all that money to create the chocolate
treats, which gives children a taste for chocolate, but the little
chocolate addicts then give all their money to Reese's and Hershey's and
Nestle's, not to Easter Inc.
The head office brings in a new hot-shot to restructure the Easter
division. He comes up with an elaborate plan which consists of three
parts: (1) Cut back on chocolate costs by moving to large flat pieces with
oval shapes. The cost of goods is cut to a fraction of its former level.
(2) Add revenues by selling advertising on the Easter chocolates. (3) Make
the workforce more efficient by cutting about 11% of the staff. That third
element is the key to the plot of this film. It means that one of every
nine Easter Bunnies will be the victims of downsizing. The stars of the
story are Hank and Mike, two bunnies who get cut in our local area because
they missed a house last Easter.
The film is about what the Easter bunnies do after they get fired. What can
they do? They are not qualified to assimilate into the modern world. They
have no computer skills. The only thing they know how to do is deliver. Of
course, they try UPS, but that just doesn't work out, because they don't
just deliver things - they deliver and HIDE them, which doesn't jibe with
the UPS philosophy. They eventually lose everything and end up homeless
alcoholics, with only one chance to get their jobs back. It's a long-shot
and kinda crazy, but it's so crazy that it just ... might ... work ...
Hank and Mike are played by two human guys in bunny suits, and the
characters are supposed to look like that as well, except that the bunny
suits are not supposed to be costumes. In the film's alternate reality,
these guys are the real Easter bunnies, and they're just regular lunchpail
guys, except with rabbit fur and ears, which nobody finds unusual.
Therefore, when they get laid off from Easter, Inc., they are bunny-guys who
are forced to make a living by performing other jobs which do not call for a
bunny appearance. Apart from the bunny fur and ears, they are like two two
assembly line guys replaced by automation and/or corporate downsizing. Their
jobs once provided them with the only identity they had, and they are
nobodies without that identity.
Pretty funny idea. It's a dark, dark comedy in the general tradition of Bad
Santa, and it works for a while. Not for the entire movie, but for a while.
The problem comes when the scriptwriters (the same guys who play the
bunnies) have to transform the concept from an idea to a story. They've
padded the film with surrealism, an insane song, and a "slobs versus snobs"
overlay, but the truth is that very little of that exoskeleton works. The
characters are fun, the idea is funny, and the film delivers some "WTF?"
laughs right off the bat, but the whole concept just kind of runs out of
steam when it tries to deliver a traditional storyline about the triumph of
underdogs.
Still, you may get a kick out of this film if you enjoy indies which stray
far from the beaten track. It's anti-establishment, surreal, obscene, foul,
and politically incorrect. And has some good nudity.
And, in its own lusty and coarse way, it's also kind of cute and
warm-hearted.
