Skip Tracer (Zale Dalen, 1977)

 

The most abiding impression left by Zale Dalen’s 1977 Vancouver-set drama Skip Tracer is of basic cheerlessness – there’s perhaps not a single scene in the film when anyone seems to be experiencing any very deep or meaningful pleasure (even the scene set in a strip joint is about as drab as they get). The film focuses on John Collins, collector for what we take to be a predatory lending agency (the title fits a little oddly as the film doesn’t depict too much difficulty in tracking down his targets, and it seems his workload also encompasses taking loan applications); he’s won the company’s “man of the year” award three straight times and is gunning for a fourth, but there’s little sign that the relative success does much for him, as his vehicle and apartment are both fairly non-descript and there’s no sign of a meaningful personal life. In the somewhat over-conventional closing stretch, Collins is faced with brutal evidence of the human cost of his efforts and quits after a final act of rebellion; the details aren’t particularly convincing though, either in terms of his own moral awakening or those of the actions he takes (from today’s perspective, it’s poignant to note the relative modesty of the delinquent amounts for which lives are ruined). The film is at its best in depicting the deadening office culture, in which women are habitually called “sweetheart” and there’s never a vague suggestion they might fill anything more than support roles, and in which Collins one day finds that his coveted personal office has been taken away at the behest of the unseen “kids with business degrees” who seemingly treat the experienced (but not formally educated) likes of Collins merely as manipulable data points. And as in so many Canadian films of the period, one strongly senses that the malaise and drabness extends far beyond the film’s narrow parameters.