BEST IN SHOW (Warner Bros.) Starring: Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, Michael Hitchcock, Michael McKean, John Michael Higgins, Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard. Screenplay: Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. Producer: Karen Murphy. Director: Christopher Guest. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (profanity, adult themes, adult humor) Running Time: 88 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
You have to believe that Christopher Guest is a smart enough guy to realize he's setting himself up for some tough comparisons. The legendary mock documentary THIS IS SPINAL TAP, co-starring and co-written by Guest, is making a return appearance to theaters to remind viewers that it was the funniest comedy of the 1980s; Guest also co-wrote and directed WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, another very funny mock documentary. It's a format that's been good for Guest, and you can't blame him for returning to the well, especially when venturing outside it to direct has resulted in garbage like the Chris Farley/Matthew Perry debacle ALMOST HEROES. But you have to wonder when his luck will run out. How many mock documentaries can one director fit on the head of a pin?
BEST IN SHOW is a very entertaining film comedy on a pure laugh meter, but it's missing something SPINAL TAP and GUFFMAN both had to spare: a real perspective on its subject, and genuine affection for its characters. The setting is the world of dog shows, specifically the prestigious Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show in Philadelphia. The "documentary" follows several participants through their travels to and preparation for the show. Gerry (Eugene Levy) and Cookie Fleck (Catherine O'Hara) drive up from Florida with their Norwich terrier Winky; high-strung yuppie couple Hamilton (Michael Hitchcock) and Meg Swan (Parker Posey) bring their equally high-strung Weimeraner Beatrice; North Carolina fishing supply store owner Harlan Pepper (Guest) comes with his young bloodhound Hubert. And there's two-time defending champion Rhapsody in White, a standard poodle owned by trophy wife Sheri Ann Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge) and handled by veteran trainer Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch).
As has been the case in Guest's other mockumentaries, BEST IN SHOW starts with some broadly comic characters to get the gags rolling. Gerry does plenty of slow burns while man after man relates his sexual history with Cookie. The braces-wearing Swans freak out over every bump in their lives. There is also a gay couple (Michael McKean and John Michael Higgins) who raise Shih tzus, the latter of whom swishes about and dispenses double-entendre about pepperoni. Lots of the dialogue -- much of it obviously improvised -- is hilarious, especially when it involves absurdities like Harlan's interest in ventriloquism or Gerry's (literal) two left feet. If you just sit back and listen, the laughs will keep coming.
The laughs should have been richer, however, and there's a reason they're not. In SPINAL TAP and GUFFMAN, the broad characters were only the starting point for people that eventually became much more human and sympathetic as we come to understand their world. Guest never seems nearly as interested in the complexities of his characters or their world in BEST IN SHOW. There's no sense for why people become so obsessed with putting their pets through the show-dog grind, no real affection for their quirks or insecurities. In fact, he plays downright nasty with Sheri Ann and the Swans in particular, making them fairly grotesque caricatures. There's a sense that Guest has picked a milieu where he knew there would be a lot of weird people, and decided simply to wring the laughs out of their weirdness.
There are plenty of laughs to be wrung out of that weirdness, fortunately, and even more to be wrung from the show itself. BEST IN SHOW gets a tremendous boost once Fred Willard shows up as the Mayflower show's loud-mouthed announcer Buck Laughlin, whose inane questions for his flustered British co-host provide nearly non-stop laughs. Laughlin is also one of the few characters whose ridiculousness is accompanied by a wink; he's a guy doing a job he's utterly unqualified for, embarrassing himself while trying to make the best of it. Willard is brilliant, and the rest of BEST IN SHOW is still pretty funny. It's simply funny in a slightly more mean-spirited way, making it harder to embrace unreservedly. Guest has scored again, but this time there's a less welcome sort of "mock" in his mock documentary.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 puppy loves: 7.
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