A likable Canadian buddy comedy that teams Michael Riley as a withdrawn brewery worker with Robbie Coltrane as a flamboyant con artist who becomes his boarder; their dreams coincide when Coltrane convinces Riley to invest in a fancy operatic restaurant called La Traviata. The main interest here is the characters rather than the plot, and director Yves Simoneau does a good job of guiding the players through a quirky if ultimately predictable script by Eugene Lipinski (who plays a disgruntled brewery worker) and Paul Quarrington; Deborah Duchene also stands out as an aggressive waitress with designs on Riley, and Kenneth Welsh does what he can with the overly fancy part of the brewery foreman and company hockey coach. Richard Gregoire keeps things humming with his eclectic score, although you may be distracted by his vulgar and uncredited appropriations of Stravinsky (1990). (JR)