Howerton’s 40-proof, rageaholic performance skirts caricature but comes out the other end as a psychologically deft tour de force. This loosely fictionalized version of Balsillie, whose seething, pent-up contempt for partners and competitors alike emanates from some darker place (maybe even subconscious solidarity with his geeky new underlings) is a memorable and malevolent creation—the closest thing Canadian entertainment has had to a Gordon Gekko since the glory days of Traders.

By Calum Marsh “This movie’s gonna be so good,” raves a zealous teenaged filmmaker to two young kids at the beginning of The Dirties. “It’s set in the club from Irreversible [2002].” The children are understandably baffled by the reference, and their reaction is genuine—they don’t know they’re acting in a film at all. The…