The condescending tone of Arcand's dialogue suited both "The Decline of the American Empire" and "The Barbarian Invasions," since both of those films are about holier-than-thou Canadian academics. But while "The Fall of the American Empire" is as vinegary as those two earlier films, it's not as warm or as attractive. The most substantial thing that Arcand's three films have in common is that they all follow self-absorbed characters who insist that traditional morality doesn't apply to them, not in a world governed by uncaring G-men and/or capitalists. But Arcand doesn't seem to care about his characters either. They are, for the most part, whiteboards that he uses to tell banal truths about charity and criminality in the 21st century. 

Arcand half-heartedly asks viewers to root for Pierre-Paul (Alexandre Landry), a nebbish courier who tries to launder money that he took from an aborted heist orchestrated by Jacmel (Patrick Abellard) and Chenier (Kemy St-Eloy), two woefully under-developed black crooks who listen to loud rap music and steal cars. But Pierre-Paul's not the only one who wants Jacmel's loot: there's the West End Gang, who are negligibly repped by white, torture-loving gangsters (we're helpfully told that they use the same interrogation tactics that the SS used at Auschwitz); and there's police officers Carla and Pete (Maxim Roy and Louis Morrisette), who apparently stand in for, uh, all of the Canadian government? (Pierre-Paul: "The police force is the government. They're never there to help.")

Pierre-Paul, speaking on Arcand's behalf, uses credible economic anxieties as an unbelievable pretext for robbing the mob (seriously, though: the Irish and the Jewish mob? What decade is Arcand living in?). Pierre-Paul reminds his accomplices that he has no financial dependents and is stuck in a job that doesn't pay well since a position in academia (his goal) simply doesn't pay. Pierre-Paul also knows that his courier job will, in time, physically deplete him: his knee joints will wear out and he probably won't be rich enough to repair the damage. Pierre-Paul also considers himself above the law—"I don't respect society" —and insists that he does not come from money: "For generations, my family's been poor." And, as if Pierre-Paul's straits couldn't get more dire: he has unpaid student loans! Wow, say no more, dude, just take whatever you can carry.

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